House of Commons Hansard Debates for 15 Nov 1996 (pt 14)

1.12 pm

Dr. John Marek (Wrexham): I accept the explanation offered by the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) for why he communicated with civil servants in the Box. If he was saying, "Good morning," I have no objection, but more than one Conservative Member was involved and there was quite a banter with the civil servants, who were perhaps being partial when cheering on the Minister when he replied to Opposition interventions. I thought that it was all slightly unseemly, but we have settled down after the first half hour and are having a reasonably instructive debate from which I hope both Government and Opposition can learn.

I must tell the hon. Member for Twickenham(Mr. Jessel) that I doubt whether the Minister will deal personally with changes to a waiting room in one of the stations in his constituency. The hon. Gentleman said that he did not want to be a citizen and would prefer to be a subject. If he had "subject" on his passport, he would be interrogated on arrival at terminal 2 or 3 and sent back as an illegal immigrant.

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The hon. Member for Twickenham also accused me of being unfair to the civil servants in the Box by calling them scribblers, but they were scribbling notes. It is a perfectly respectable term, and no disrespect was meant by the description. Such work continues to be done, and it is an important asset to Ministers who need advice and accurate information to help them reply to the points made by hon. Members.

Many Conservative Members have attacked British Rail today. They talked about Beeching, but none has said that a Conservative Government appointed Beeching and that Conservative Governments are to blame for the massive closures that took place in the early 1960s. I remember the Labour Government who took power in 1964. They appointed Lady Castle as Minister of Transport. She was unable to reverse many of the changes that had been made. I draw a parallel between 1964 and what is going on now. There is a rush to try to franchise and sell off the system, and it does not appear to matter what price the Government get. They want to sell as much as possible before the next Labour Government take office on 2 May.

Mr. Robathan: The hon. Gentleman is right in that Beeching brought out his report in 1962, under a Conservative Government, but it was generally thought that the motor car would take over--as it perhaps has done during the past few years. From October 1964 onwards--two years after the report was published--the Labour Government implemented the closures. He says that the Minister of Transport at the time was unable to stop the closures, but she could have if she had tried harder.

Dr. Marek: Nothing is ever totally black or white--although in this case it is mostly black as far as Conservative Members are concerned.

I wish to comment on the attack on Jimmy Knapp by the hon. Member for Blaby. Jimmy Knapp is an elected trade unionist who is representing his members and fighting, against all the odds, to ensure that his members continue to get a reasonable salary on which to live. Many Conservative Members--I am not accusing the hon. Gentleman of this--would be happy if rail workers continued to do the same job on half the salary. That must be stopped, and I am glad that the European Union has now made sure that public sector workers at least will benefit from the 48-hour directive.

The debate got off to a bad start when the Minister for Railways and Roads accused many Opposition Members of being paid mouthpieces of the rail workers or the unions. In the past, I was sponsored by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. Conservative Members who look at the Register of Members' Interests will see that I have declared that 25 per cent. of my election expenses were paid for by the RMT. On the other hand, nobody from the RMT has paid me a penny--[Interruption.] The Minister may look up at the ceiling, but I have not received a penny from the RMT to put in my pocket as salary, or as any expense or benefit--not one penny. It is Conservative Members who take £1,000 for asking parliamentary questions, not Labour Members.

It is a pity that the Minister for Railways and Roads is not here. Having made a bad start to the debate, he made his speech and hardly listened to the speech of my

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hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Bradley). He then disappeared, and has not been seen since. However, I absolve his deputy, the Minister for Transport in London, who has been here throughout the debate, and whom I commend for listening to it all. That is not always the case; he has listened, and I am sure that we will get a good winding-up speech as a result.

I will refer to the problems of privatisation in a moment, but whether the system can be renationalised has been mentioned. I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe--

Mr. Bradley: Withington.

Dr. Marek: I am sorry. I live only 50 miles from Manchester, and I should know better. My hon. Friend the Member for Withington said that, under the next Labour Government, Railtrack would be publicly owned and publicly accountable. Those were excellent words. We need that for the establishment of an integrated system. I shall give examples in due course.

One way of doing that would be to insist that Railtrack lowers access charges to franchisees. In that case, Railtrack would need public subsidy. None of the Conservative Members who have spoken mentioned the fact that an enormous amount of public subsidy still goes into the railway system. If track access charges were reduced and Railtrack received public subsidy, equity could be taken in return. I imagine that Railtrack could be nationalised within a couple of years--with no trouble. If that public subsidy was not available, the entire system would stop--not tomorrow, but in 20 minutes. We must be clear that an important public interest is involved and that it must be maintained.

I do not argue that everything that Conservative Members have said is wrong. Of course there are advantages in allowing private individuals to exercise their entrepreneurship in operating services or parts of services. Some of that has been done reasonably well. By and large, though, it has been froth--some of it important froth--and the real problem facing the railway system now in its semi-privatised state is the lack of finance, investment, traction, rolling stock and proper facilities at stations.

Nothing will change that unless the method of financing is reassessed and the Government make a serious attempt to move passengers and freight on to the railways. I do not have the figures, but well over 90 per cent. of freight is carried by road--let us say 94 per cent. If the amount of freight carried on the railway was doubled, 88 per cent. would still be carried by road. The problem is huge. I am not confident that the next Labour Administration will be up to the task. It requires a Government with the will and the powers to tackle the whole unhappy situation.

I hope that, if the hon. Member for Blaby is going to Norfolk, he will go by train. It is Friday, so the roads will be blocked.

Mr. Robathan: I walked here.

Dr. Marek: I walked here as well. There is clearly much to be gained by Members of Parliament travelling from their constituencies by train or other forms of public transport--or, preferably, by foot, if that is possible.

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I have listened to the points made by other hon. Members. I welcome the fact that mobile telephones and walkmans have been banned from some railway carriages. Check-in facilities on the Gatwick Express will be helpful to the average passenger. I have no argument with such developments.

I regret, however, the loss of integration in services--for example, in pricing. It should be simple for a passenger arriving from my part of the world, north Wales, to turn up at Victoria and get the next train to Gatwick, whether it is the Gatwick Express, a stopping train that goes as far as Three Bridges or a Brighton express. We cannot do that now. By getting on the wrong train, people face penalty payments. Competition has led to differences in ticket prices. I do not oppose competition--it has some merit--but too much competition leads to a loss of integration and traveller convenience. Passengers who buy rail tickets should be able to travel from one part of the country to another with as few restrictions as possible.

Delays in the London area have increased. A friend who lives in Lee, south-east London, has used the line from Lee to Charing Cross for more than 30 years. I remember using the line from New Cross Gate to Charing Cross when I was a student 30 years ago and I do not recall many delays on the trains to London Bridge--although there were difficulties at Borough Market junction, which probably still occur. My friend told me only yesterday that trains are often delayed by five, 10 or 15 minutes before they reach London Bridge station. That is only anecdotal evidence but it is provided by someone who has used the service for 30 years and I think that we should take it seriously. It stands in stark contrast to the claims of many Conservative Members.

There are other problems. Some 20 or 30 years ago, trains on north Kent lines used to have four seats across--two on each side with a corridor down the middle. The much vaunted Networkers--which are still experiencing problems--have five seats across. I travelled on a Networker train some time ago and I could not sit in the seat because the pitch was too tight. There was a small well in the back of the seat in front of me and, if I was careful, I could slot my knees into it, but it was an uncomfortable journey.

I think that trains carrying passengers five abreast on the British gauge are not suitable for journeys of up to one hour and 40 minutes, for example, as from Victoria to Ramsgate. I do not doubt that rail passengers can stand for journeys of 20 minutes or sit in cattle-like conditions for 30 or 40 minutes, but why do we build down to a standard with every new generation of trains? That does not always happen, but it is what we have done with the South Eastern electrics. I do not applaud the new developments in trains. We must lift our horizons. It remains to be seen whether the investment in South West Trains and elsewhere to which Conservative Members referred will provide better standard, more comfortable trains. I suspend judgment until I see what happens.

I apologise to hon. Members from other parts of the country, but I shall now restrict my remarks to the Wrexham area in my constituency and illustrate how privatisation has affected local services. First, I refer to the west coast and north Wales main lines. Until 1991, six trains travelled from Euston to Holyhead each day. Privatisation plans were being drawn up at that time and the Government were preparing for the 1992 election.

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They clearly asked civil servants to consider how to privatise the railways. As a consequence, there was a general change in British Rail's attitude to developing its services and passenger facilities.

The service in the Wrexham area began to go downhill after 1992, and there has been no improvement since privatisation and the introduction of franchising. The six InterCity trains that used to travel from Euston to Holyhead were powered electrically as far as Crewe, where there was an engine change, and then continued to Holyhead.

At that time, it was deemed that class 47s would be life expired after a certain time and that certain changes would have to be made. After much debate, it was decided to run diesel under the wires between Crewe and Euston and to have high-speed trains on the service. However, only three services in each direction were operated. It is getting worse. Last year, those three services came down to about two and a half, because the last train from Euston to Holyhead, at about 20.05 or 20.10, is no longer an HST. It is electrically hauled as far as Crewe, where the engine is changed and then some old engine--probably some class 37--is found and it is hauled by diesel from Crewe to Holyhead.

Why? Because under the old British Rail there was integration, and HSTs were maintained at Plymouth--there was a depot at Old Oak. Since the system was split up, the west coast main line has had three sets for use on the Holyhead service. Those sets cannot, however, be maintained in the integrated fashion that they once were, with the result that they have to go to Manchester for servicing, and it is simply not possible for the sets, in rotation, to be maintained in Manchester properly and efficiently, keeping the three services in each direction HST hauled all the way. That is an excellent example of where privatisation has worsened the service for the ordinary passenger. We now have a service that takes longer, that grumbles through the Welsh countryside after it reaches Wales from Chester to Holyhead, and there is a delay at Crewe. There has been a worsening of the conditions and the service.