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Mr. Stern: I remind my hon. Friend that development is not all one way. Recently, an experimental engine caught fire at Bristol Parkway station in my constituency. However, he is right: development is continuing.
The Bill will be useful in preserving not only our historic heritage--since the great days of iron--but our modern heritage. It will enable people to track the progress of the industry. I do not wish to challenge the Labour party in this regard because I am aware that the Bill has proceeded with all-party support and I do not want to upset that, but I shall refer to the privatisation process--something that I fully support.
Since being elected to this place in 1983, I have been a regular traveller on British Rail between London and Bristol. It has been a source of considerable regret to me that, over that period the train trip has got slower and the timetable has accommodated the increasing slowness of the trains. Between 1983 and 1996, the minimum journey time between London and Bristol Parkway has increased by one third--which is quite a lot. When I was first elected, the fastest train between London and Bristol Parkway took 59 minutes; until recently, the fastest train took one hour and 20 minutes.
I was therefore somewhat surprised when I received a letter from a constituent who asked me to deplore the fact that train travel times have increased by 15 minutes between London and Bristol Parkway since privatisation. I looked up my previous correspondence with the constituent and discovered that he has made it clear on a number of occasions that he is an active member of the Labour party. The reverse is actually the case: at that stage, there had been no change in the timetable since privatisation.
Recently, I was particularly delighted to receive a timetable from the newly privatised Great Western. For the first time since I have been a Member of Parliament--
and, I believe, longer than that--the times of trains, and achieved times of trains, between London and Bristol have come down. New and more convenient trains have been timetabled and, for the first time in my memory, the journey time has been reduced. That is not the only thing that has been achieved in this area. Shortly after privatisation, Great Western announced considerably improved conditions and pay for the staff of the newly franchised railway. For the first time in my memory, improved conditions were achieved without a strike.
I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome to contact the Railway Heritage Committee to ensure that we adequately preserve records, on paper, of what British Rail was achieving before privatisation--I refer to timetables, rule books and wage structures. We will then see the progress that has started with Great Western--and that will continue. We will rebuild the sort of railway that many of us believe is possible.
Mr. Robinson:
I am delighted to give my hon. Friend that assurance. I have a funny feeling that a member of the Railway Heritage Committee may be listening to him right now.
Mr. Stern:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that assurance.
Mr. Patrick Thompson (Norwich, North):
My hon. Friend has referred to the improved wage structures that have been introduced post franchise, post privatisation. To what extent have they been reported in local or other newspapers so that people are aware of them?
Mr. Stern:
I regret that good news about the railways rarely achieves reported status. I should like to pay tribute to one of my local newspapers, however, the "Northavon Gazette", which has reported in full my comments about the improved wage structures and timetables. Nevertheless, the problem is that, after the barrage--some may say farrago--of publicity about the privatisation process, many people are still finding it difficult to believe that we are moving into an era of improved railway services for passengers and staff. I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to hammer away on those improvements to ensure that people understand the direction in which the industry is going.
That neatly brings me to my second point. As a result of boundary changes, a new area, Patchway, will be added to the Bristol, North-West constituency at the next general election. As I hope to continue to represent the constituency then, I have considered some of the problems associated with the area. I have discovered that it has its own railway station on a branch line, but that that branch line has suffered a long history of neglect in terms of the effects of timetabling. When I queried the successor to British Rail how the pattern of services has changed in recent years to accommodate local demand, I was somewhat surprised to find that, but for a couple of years back, no timetables were readily available to enable the current management to compare the services it is now offering with those on offer a few years ago. That is deplorable.
Mr. Sproat:
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Robinson) on taking the Bill thus far through Parliament. The piloting of a Private Member's Bill is made to look easy when it is done with such elegance and neatness as that displayed by my hon. Friend, but it is extremely complicated. I congratulate him on his mastery of a complex subject and on taking a necessary Bill through the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern) mentioned the late Robert Adley, who was a real character in the House and who certainly knew more about the railways than anyone this side of the British Railways Board. I was glad to hear that his wife, Jane, whom I have also met, is now living in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West mentioned the concept of the museum of the British empire in Bristol. It is a tremendous idea. The British empire and railways go together naturally. Not only will the empire museum be housed, if all goes well, in the old Brunel sheds, but one can hardly go anywhere in the third world or what used to be the British empire without finding old railways built in 1925 and still going strong, or old station hotels, such as that in Kuala Lumpur, resonant with imperial echoes. We now return to the Bill.
I am deputising for the Minister of State, Department of Transport. I am pleased to do so. He is an exceptionally good Minister, who has done me a good turn on a matter in which you and I, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have a common interest--the Wakefield mining museum, for which he has agreed a signpost.
I have a personal interest in this matter, because one of my predecessors as Member of Parliament for Harwich was the first person ever to be killed by a railway train, before which he was carelessly walking with a red flag when the railway was being opened--Mr. William Huskisson.
I find myself with a rather more personal interest in the Bill than I had first expected. As a boy, I used to hold out the hoop at railway stations. Hon. Members may remember that one put one's hand through the hoop and the driver caught it. I went out of my way to collect the hoop in the old metal tablet.
It is especially on behalf of the Department of National Heritage that I am grateful to be here because, as the Minister responsible for the national railway museum, I am pleased to speak for a measure that will ensure that the museum remains a haven of excellence and international repute in the conservation of railway heritage.
I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome about the museum's work. In addition to the splendour of Queen Adelaide's coach, built in 1842, and the famous Mallard--I often saw it as a boy, and travelled in the train pulled by the old streamliner--which held the world steam record, there are many fascinating engineering drawings and artefacts, such as station plates.
One of the difficult aspects of working at the Department of National Heritage is that some people assume that heritage is a dry matter, concerned with the past and not remotely concerned with the future. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West correctly said that that is very far from the case, and indicated a few ways in which we should be keeping up with artefacts, as it were, that are being created today that would be valuable in future.
There are few areas in which the misconception of dry and dusty matter is more of a misconception than railway heritage. Historic railway records can be surprisingly relevant to the running of the railway today. I understand that the Brunel era drawings, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome alluded, are still used as working drawings. I also noted the extraordinary story in The Times saying that steam engines are more environmentally friendly than diesel. That shows that there is more than heritage interest in what my hon. Friend proposes.
My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome mentioned the lottery and the national heritage memorial fund. Of course the scope of the Bill does not extend to increasing the criteria on the basis of which lottery funding can be delivered, but my Department does intend, at a suitable opportunity and as soon as possible, to introduce legislation to extend the powers of the national heritage memorial fund regarding the lottery to make a wider range of projects and recipients eligible. That could encompass those to which my hon. Friend alluded.
I wholeheartedly join my hon. Friend in applauding the work of the Railway Heritage Committee. It is an independent committee, under the chairmanship ofSir Gordon Higginson, and consists of other eminent persons from the Railway Heritage Movement and the railway industry. It was set up under the Railways Act 1993 to ensure that railway artefacts and records of historic significance go to the appropriate collecting institution at the end of their useful lives and become available to a wider public. In addition to the designations that my hon. Friend mentioned, I understand that the Railway Heritage Committee has done much work on setting criteria for future designations and directions, which have been pored over in Committee.
The committee's powers under the 1993 Act extended to the British Railways Board and the new public sector bodies that were to be created under the restructuring process. Now many of the board's successors are entering the private sector and so leaving the scope of existing provisions, which necessitates new arrangements.
The committee as a whole, and its members as individuals, welcome the Bill. I understand that they have been consulted and their views carefully considered throughout the drafting process. In particular, the head of the national railway museum, Mr. Andrew Scott, who is a member of the committee, strongly welcomes the
provisions in the Bill as they will help to ensure that the museum's leading role in the preservation of important historical railway material will continue.
I am pleased that the Bill recognises the need to balance the interests of the railway heritage community and the railway industry. That should enable all parties to work co-operatively to ensure that primary sources for future historians are not lost.
As my hon. Friend has noted, the Bill provides for the Secretary of State to issue guidance to the committee.I am sure that it would be helpful to the House if I explained the purpose of the guidance. Private sector owners of designated records and artefacts must have a right to compensation at market value if the committee directs disposal of those items. It is quite likely that, in many cases, the owners will waive that right in the interests of their public image, but they must have that right.
On the other hand, the British Railways Board is happy to continue to transfer records and artefacts to the national railway museum, the Public Record Office, the Scottish Record Office and other collecting institutions free or for a nominal charge.
It would be wrong to obstruct that mutually beneficial arrangement between the board and the collecting institutions, but as hon. Members will be aware we could hardly make one provision for the public sector and another for the private sector in the Bill. The guidance will deal with that problem.
Hon. Members may be wondering how the market value compensation for private sector owners will be calculated. That will be done by agreement between the owner and the collecting institution. Of course, there will be disagreements from time to time. The outline guidance provides for recourse to arbitration in that event. If the parties failed to agree on an arbiter, the president of the Institute of Arbiters will be asked to choose one. The guidance will also assist the committee in drafting directions.
I must stress that we have absolutely no intention of undermining the committee's independence by giving guidance on designation or direction criteria, or on particular designations or directions. Even if the Secretary of State were to give such guidance, the committee would merely be obliged to have regard to it, not to follow it. I can confirm that the guidance will be published and that copies will be placed in the Library of the House.
I believe that my hon. Friend's Bill will help significantly in the preservation of railway artefacts and records and so will benefit railway industry and railway heritage interests and the public. I commend it to the House.
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