House of Commons Hansard Debates for 17 Apr 1996 (pt 32)

6.2 pm

Ms Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Highgate): The Secretary of State attempted to convince the House--with a marked lack of success--that the Government's plans for the privatisation of our railways and the creation of Railtrack were already an unqualified success. That has not been the experience of my constituents, certainly from the beginning of this year. [Interruption.]

I seem to be causing some concern to the hon. Member for Castle Point (Dr. Spink). If he would like me to give way, I would be happy so to do. He is checking in the list of Members' interests, and I have little doubt that he is about to accuse me of not declaring an interest as a Member sponsored by the rail drivers union, the Association of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen or ASLEF.

The situation has changed since the House has reconvened. I, in common with all my right hon. and hon. Friends, am no longer sponsored by trade unions. Such sponsorship as the trade union movement continues to devote and dedicate to the Labour party is via the constituency parties and not to individual Members of Parliament. I hope that I have set the hon. Gentleman's mind at rest. [Interruption.] I clearly have not, so I will give way.

Dr. Spink: I was not going to make any accusation about the hon. Lady. I am delighted that she has explained the situation, and I am delighted that she no longer speaks for that vested interest. Perhaps she will join Conservative Members in speaking for the public interest and the passengers.

Ms Jackson: Would that Conservative Members spoke sufficiently frequently for the vested interests of their constituents and the public. If Conservative Members spoke for those interests, I have little doubt that they would join us in the Lobby tonight and vote against the flotation of Railtrack.

The point that I was attempting to make leads directly from the contribution by the hon. Member for Castle Point. The privatisation of our railways and, indeed, the formation of Railtrack have not been in the interests of my constituents, especially those living in two roads in the Cricklewood area. Since the beginning of this year, necessary work--I have no doubt that the work is necessary--on the tracks that run alongside those roads has been causing problems.

I have received a letter from one of my constituents, on behalf of the Fordwych Residents' Association, which states:

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"I write . . . to advise you of the very considerable discomfort, inconvenience and apprehension of danger to their homes and properties experienced by many of the residents in this area as a consequence of the very much increased vibration from the railway track which runs parallel"

to those roads. He continues:

"people . . . have lived for many years adjacent to the railway line and have become inured and habituated to the normal level of traffic"--

but he says that they regarded the current level of vibration to be abnormal. That letter was dated 14 March.

A response to that letter, dated 1 April, came from the infrastructure services manager of Railtrack Midlands to my constituent. The reply states:

"Your fear that vibration from the railway may lead to long term structural damage to your house must be denied."

There is no reason why my constituent must deny the experience that he, his family and neighbours are living through at the moment, but the most important paragraph of the letter is the last one. The letter is signed by Mr. K. B. Humphrey and states:

"The above may not be what you want to hear but I am afraid Railtrack do operate their railway with the benefit of statutory authority and in the absence of proof of negligence they are not liable to adjoining landowners for noise, vibration or otherwise."

Many Conservative Members, in our debates on the channel tunnel rail link, have voiced the concerns of their constituents about the possible vibration and noise that may be contingent upon the construction of that high-speed line. The letter is a fairly clear proof that Railtrack is not putting the customer first. We are told that that is the basic overriding priority of any privatised company--the Secretary of State said it today. The phrase he used was that the customer is king. Clearly Railtrack does not regard its customers as king.

For me, there is another cause for concern in the exchange of correspondence on that issue, and I am sure that all hon. Members would share that concern. There has been much correspondence between myself and my constituents, and between Railtrack and myself on behalf of my constituents, since the beginning of this year. On 12 April, I received a letter from Railtrack East Anglia, from Miss Sandra Jones, the public affairs manager. Her letter states:

"The line in question is in Railtrack's Midland zone. I have forwarded your letter for them to deal with. To speed up these matters in the future"--

clearly Railtrack believes that such difficulties will not abate--

"would you be pleased to mark on a map which railway lines in your constituency are ours and which belong to other Railtrack zones?"

I find it bewildering that Railtrack does not know what it is supposed to be in charge of--it seems not to know which are its lines, where they are and what responsibilities it has.

We have heard about the overall benefits that must inevitably arise for the travelling public from the Government's privatisation plans. The hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller) talked about closed circuit television, which has been a proven success in reducing crime, whenever the Government have managed to find the funding to assist local authorities, for example, to install it. The automatic presumption, indeed assumption, that privatisation will bring about many necessary

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benefits--over the past 17 years, successive Conservative Governments have markedly failed to consider them--is not realistic.

I visited Edmonton Green earlier this week. There, the local Labour-controlled authority, Enfield council, had been in consultation with the West Anglia and Great Northern railway to install closed circuit televisions in the four stations in the area. I should say that in one of the stations, Bushill Park, CCTV has already been installed. There were three other stations, however, where the Labour-controlled local authority and the railway company were wishing to install CCTV. These were Edmonton Green, Silver Street and Angel Road.

Only on Tuesday of this week, I believe, the West Anglia and Great Northern railway had to put the scheme on hold, due to uncertainty about its future after privatisation.

Dr. Ian Twinn (Edmonton): It was kind of the hon. Lady to announce that she had been to my constituency, although she did not have the grace to say beforehand that she was going to do so. I am glad that she has acknowledged that it was Tory action that led to the installation of television at Bushill Park station.

Do not the hon. Lady's remarks confirm that we need to ensure that British Rail is in the private sector, so that there is freedom to invest and so that uncertainty can be removed? The hon. Lady is suggesting that there will be further Treasury cuts and stop-starts in providing funding for BR under her scheme, which means that my constituents would be even more disadvantaged if she were ever to be in power.

Ms Jackson: I cannot think of a greater disadvantage for any constituent in any part of the country than to be represented by a Conservative Member. If they have failed consistently for 17 years to bring basic improvements into the railway system, such as safety--[Interruption.] Conservative Members have voted consistently for reductions in services generally.

In the railway industry, over the past 33 months during which the Government have been introducing privatisation, there have been job losses for 24,872 people, at a cost to the taxpayer--to Conservative Members' taxpayers--of about £500,000 a day in redundancy payments. Yet Conservative Members have the audacity and the temerity to attempt to convince the House and the country generally that the Government's policy of privatising the railways has brought benefits to the taxpayer.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms Short), who speaks from the Opposition Front Bench on transport matters, had occasion to say this afternoon, the actual costs to the taxpayer of the Government's attempt to privatise the railways, and the flotation of Railtrack, is approaching £2.6 billion. Not one penny piece of that sum has gone into improving track and signalling. None of that sum has been used to install CCTV in the three remaining stations in the constituency of the hon. Member for Edmonton (Dr. Twinn). Services have not been improved.

Constant and consistent unmanning seems to be the first step that every franchise operator takes. When a franchise has been awarded, unmanning will do nothing to attract people on to the railways. As the hon. Member

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for Keighley said, it is virtually impossible for people with disabilities to use our railways, as they would undoubtedly wish to do, if stations are unmanned. It is equally highly unlikely that women will consider travelling late at night on our railways if stations are unmanned and the only other person on the train is probably the driver. The dangers are too well reported for that to be a possibility.

Will the Government's policy attract people from their cars on to the railways? My hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood stressed how grossly unbalanced is the present structure for those freight operators who would like to move freight from the roads on to the railways. There is nothing in the Government's privatisation plans or in the flotation of Railtrack that will balance the current basic inequity. Yet we must acknowledge that the way forward, both economically and environmentally, is to attract greater passenger use of our railway system, and certainly greater freight movements by rail.

Privatisation and the flotation of Railtrack, far from expanding the use of railways and improving the presently integrated system, will lead to the break-up of the system. It is nonsense for the Government to argue that the£2.6 billion that the taxpayer has already spent on a benighted policy will improve investment in our railways.

Railtrack has announced, I understand, after the publication of its prospectus, that it perceives spending £10 billion over the next 10 years as investment in our railway infrastructure. I believe that it was three years ago that Mr. Horton trumpeted with some pride that Railtrack intended to spend £800 million over the next 10 years on the west coast main line alone. That £8 billion would, over the 10 years to which he referred, have brought the west coast main line to the level at which it stood in 1973. That amount of investment would have produced a west coast main line that was 30 years out of date.

Apparently the magic door that will open to the treasuries of the world after Railtrack is privatised will produce for the entire network--not one line--only£10 billion over the next 10 years. There are already massive lengths of track along which trains must run slowly. There are speed restrictions because the lines have not been maintained to enable trains to run at the speeds of which they are capable.

We have heard much about the possibility of new rolling stock. If memory serves me correctly, Network SouthCentral, the most recent franchised line, stated categorically that it had no plans to provide new rolling stock on its lines. Network SouthCentral has 60 per cent. of the old slam-door trains. At the end of three years, the majority of its rolling stock will be 50 years out of date.

Network SouthCentral acknowledges that, over the next three years, it intends to invest £10 million in the line. That is £3.3 million a year. That is entirely inadequate, as anyone who knows anything about railways would agree.

There is no possibility, as we have seen ever since the Government introduced privatisation, that their proposals will create a railway fit for the 21st century and fit for the people. The only privatisation that our railway needs after 17 years of less than benign neglect by successive Conservative Governments is, as the Labour party has consistently argued, a public-private partnership. That is not, as the Government clearly wish, to wash our hands of the whole affair and push the railway system into the private sector.