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Mr. Garnier: Reverting to the hon. Gentleman's point about a London transport business tax, did he say what percentage the tax would be of a company's profits or turnover? If he did I missed it. Did he say which authority would levy the tax--a London Transport body, a local government body or central Government? What would be the consequences of the appeals system that would have to be set up to deal with any applications against any unfair levy of taxation that may be made by the body that he hopes to invent? Finally, what total sum does the hon. Gentleman hope that his new tax will raise? Would it be different from the £750 million that he mentioned earlier?
Mr. Hill: Those questions would be better put to the Corporation of London or to London First, because they devised the scheme.
Mr. Garnier: The hon. Gentleman is arguing in favour of the proposal.
Mr. Hill: I will give the hon. and learned Gentleman an example. It is estimated that a 10 per cent. supplement to the national non-domestic rate for London businesses would yield between £300 million and £400 million.I cannot dispute that figure as it appears in a document entitled, "Liberate the Tube", published by the Centre for Policy Studies, so it would appear to have the stamp of approval of one of the hon. and learned Gentleman's Conservative party think tanks. He might have a word with the CPS about the idea; I dare say that he is closer to it than I am.
Mr. Garnier: I would not mind asking--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Is the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill) giving way?
Mr. Hill: No. I have answered the hon. and learned Member perfectly adequately.
It is perfectly true, as the Minister has repeatedly told us, that capital investment in London is at an all-time high. However, almost half that capital expenditure is devoted
solely to the Jubilee line extension. I do not complain about the Jubilee line extension; I am all for new lines. In fact it would suit me if the Minister would here and now give the immediate go-ahead for an extension of the tube to Streatham. That was first promised in 1926, but we are still waiting for it 70 years on. What a wonderful millennium gift that would be for the people of Streatham. I would gladly give way to the Minister if he would make that offer now.
I would not complain about the Jubilee line extension, even if it showed the lowest cost-benefit analysis return of the four new rail projects identified by the 1986 central London rail study. I am sure that it will be a state-of-the-art underground line. But where is the advantage in adding a few miles of the most modern metro in the world to the remaining 250 miles of London underground which is falling into greater decay and dilapidation?
In my view, London Underground is doing a terrific job in keeping the network running, generating an annual £200 million of its own funds for investment and moving as swiftly as it can to capital renewal of the system, even if that makes life difficult at times for underground users. My daily journey to work now involves my negotiating both work on a new ticket hall at Brixton tube station and work on a new escalator at the interchange between the Victoria line and the District and Circle lines at Victoria, and then emerging at the industrial site here at Westminster.
Mr. Norris:
When the hon. Gentleman asks where the advantage is to the rest of the tube system of developing the Jubilee line extension, he falls into the trap of assuming that new developments have no impact on the existing system. But of course they do. One of the key advantages of the Jubilee line extension is that it will take travellers from Stratford, for example, directly to the west end. Those people currently use the Central line; the hon. Gentleman will know that even after a £830 million improvement, overcrowding on the east-west flow of the Central line remains a key consideration. One of the greatest advantages of the Jubilee line extension is that it will alleviate pressure on a piece of the existing infrastructure.
Mr. Hill:
Again, I accept the Minister's observation.In passenger traffic terms, he must be right. But it is still worth returning to my original question: is the advantage that he describes great enough to justify devoting half the current capital programme of London Underground to a relatively short extension?
The truth is that on its present funding, London Underground Ltd. cannot keep up with the cross-pressures of the backlog of years of underinvestment in the system, together with increasing passenger demand. London Underground can now take on only the most essential engineering upgrades on the unseen parts of the system--signalling, track, bridges, embankments, and so on.
The rising backlog of renewals is highly visible even on the other parts of the system--the parts that passengers see. It would be an education for the Minister to see the appallingly decayed Bakerloo-Northern line interchange at the Elephant and Castle, or to witness the cave-like condition of many of the stations on the City extension of the Northern line.
It has been rightly said--I owe this quotation to the fascinating document published by the Centre for Policy Studies--that
No wonder so many of them prefer the modernity and convenience of the private car, and increasing car use will be the penalty for neglecting the underground.
Mr. John Marshall (Hendon, South):
It is always a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill) because he and I played an important role together in the all-party friends of the Northern line group, which helped to get the Northern line trains that will come on stream next year.
Of course, the hon. Member for Streatham displayed the irresponsibility that people in opposition enjoy.
Ms Clare Short (Birmingham, Ladywood):
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will soon enjoy being in opposition.
Mr. Marshall:
I have no desire to enjoy that irresponsibility, and do not intend to this century.
The hon. Member for Streatham said that a greater percentage of Government expenditure should be devoted to London, but--naturally--his hon. Friends the shadow Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales say that there should be more Government expenditure in Scotland and Wales, those who come from the north-east want the Government to spend more in the north-east and those who come from the north-west say that more should go to that region.
Mr. Keith Hill:
I come from London, so let us agree on that.
Mr. Marshall:
We believe in a better deal for London, but the proposals that the hon. Gentleman advocates would not help London.
The hon. Member for Streatham spoke about an employment tax in London. Such a tax would help destroy jobs in London. London First may support the idea, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that the leading light behind London First is Lord Sheppard of Didgemere, from Grand Metropolitan. If one is part of a big multinational company, one is likely to be able to afford an employment tax in London, but if one asked small shopkeepers, who are struggling, or the small business man who employs two or three people, whether they wanted an employment tax in London, they would say no. Many official organisations that claim to be representatives of industry or commerce or farmers and so on are not representative of the opinions of many of those people.
Ms Glenda Jackson:
My hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill) did not refer to an employment tax.
Mr. Marshall:
Most people would regard a payment made by industry to a central fund as a tax. It is all very well for the hon. Lady to indulge in semantics, but that is how most people would view it. If they looked at their budget and found that there was a payment "to improving London Transport", they would regard that as a tax, which would reduce their profitability and might put some of them in queer street.
The point that I was trying to make before the hon. Lady asked me to give way was that some of those organisations are not representative of individual companies. I am sure that the Whip on duty, my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Knapman), will have sympathy with the story that I am about to tell. In October 1990, when I was in Scotland, talking to some farmers, the farmers asked me, "Can you try to prevent us joining the exchange rate mechanism?" I said, "I have a lot of sympathy with your point of view"--as I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud would--"but unfortunately the National Farmers Union, which seeks to represent the farmers of the country, is telling the Government that they should do it, and do it now."
Those farmers were right; the NFU was wrong. Often organisations such as the Confederation of British Industry, which are run by large companies, which say that they are representative of industry, are not representative of small firms, which lack the time or inclination to send their major directors to interminable meetings to express their views. London First is not representative of industry; it is representative of its members, and they are not representative of every employer in this great capital.
There is a tradition that, when one speaks in a debate, one declares one's interests. The first interest I wish to declare is that, like my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (Mr. Hogg), I am an adviser to the Confederation of Passenger Transport. There is an historic symmetry in that appointment because, when I was convenor of the municipal transport committee in Aberdeen, my socialist shadow was the then Councillor Norman Hogg, the father of my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth. I am also, as the hon. Member for Streatham knows, chairman of the all-party friends of the Northern line group--friends of the Northern line not as it is, but as it should be, and as it will be next year.
Importantly, I travel by the Northern line and other routes on the London Underground. I can boast that I have asked more questions about London Underground than any colleague and made more speeches about it than any colleague--sometimes at anti-social hours.
Interestingly, early in his speech the Minister spoke about London Buses, which demonstrates some of the advantages of the Government's policy of using private management in transport. When London Buses started a
franchise programme under which routes were put out to tender, there were substantial savings--I believe of more than 10 per cent.--in running costs, Spanish practices were eliminated and efficiency became the name of the game. When London Buses was sold to the private sector, one of the advantages to London Underground was that part of the capital received was reinvested in the underground to improve the quality of service.
"For many workers in London an underground station is the most dilapidated place they have to experience in their everyday lives."
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