| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Chiltern Railway
7. Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will meet the director of Chiltern Railway to discuss the quality of service provided to passengers.[13351]
Mr. Watts: I would be delighted to meet representatives of Chiltern Railway to congratulate them on consistently beating the exacting punctuality and reliability standards required by their passengers charter. Chiltern's passengers are clearly enjoying the fruits of privatisation.
Mr. Lidington: May I invite my hon. Friend to join me in the near future for a journey on the Chiltern line through my constituency, which would enable him to appreciate at first hand both the success of Chiltern Railway in attracting ever more passengers to use its service and the need to encourage Railtrack to work with the company to provide a dual track on the stretch of line north of Princes Risborough in my constituency, which would both benefit commuters travelling from Buckinghamshire and allow for much faster journeys along the Chiltern line between London and Birmingham?
Mr. Watts: I am happy to accept my hon. Friend's invitation to join him on a journey on the Chiltern line.
On track improvements, I understand that the franchising director is willing to consider the proposition of M40 Trains that the investment costs of doubling the track should be assimilated into track access charges and has invited Chiltern Railway to submit informally a draft business case.
Mr. Chidgey:
Is the Minister aware that the managing director of Chiltern Railway has stated that, because he has only a seven-year franchise, it is impossible for him to justify purchasing more than four new 100 mph trains, which means that he cannot provide an hourly service between London and Birmingham? Is it not time that the franchising director recognised the needs of the travelling public and stopped letting franchises so short that proper investment is impossible? For the benefit of us all, will he remind the franchising director that we had thought that the purpose of privatisation was to enable rational investment, not to create more constraints than existed before?
Mr. Watts:
I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman is so ill informed about the process of franchising and the
Rail Privatisation
9. Mr. Grocott: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is his current estimate of the cost of rail privatisation.[13353]
Sir George Young: In the six years since 1990-91, the following costs will have been incurred in restructuring, privatising, franchising and regulating the new railway industry: Department of Transport, £91.7 million; British Rail and Railtrack, £417.2 million; and the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising and Office of the Rail Regulator, £121.1 million. Those costs represent some 2 to 3 per cent. of total railway industry turnover over that six-year period. They are far outweighed by the proceeds of more than £5 billion that the Government have received from privatisation.
Mr. Grocott: That is a staggering waste of public money, and an incomplete list. Why did the Secretary of State not include the £450 million of consultancy and other fees involved? Why did he not mention the train leasing companies, valued at £3 billion but sold for £1.8 billion? Cannot the Government understand the anger people feel about the sale of priceless national assets such as the rail network, which was built for the most part with picks and shovels owned by us all? As soon as the Government got their grubby hands on the assets, they were sold off at knockdown prices to the few at the expense of the taxpayer.
Sir George Young: That was the same speech that we heard 10 years ago when the Government privatised British Airways. We heard the same diatribes from Opposition Members at every privatisation. Every privatisation has incurred some up-front costs. We believe that they are justified by the enterprise, investment and improved service for customers. Exactly the same arguments apply to British Rail.
Mr. Robathan: Does my right hon. Friend welcome nostalgia that harks back so lovingly to the days of the British Rail sandwich, the mass closure of stations and lines, the wrong snow and the wrong leaves on the track: the standing national joke that was British Rail, notwithstanding the good work done by many? Will he reassure my constituents that he will travel on Midland Main Line so that he can see the excellent work that has been done and the plans that are in hand to increase the number of trains to allow a half-hourly service from London to Leicester, and appreciate the 4 Sight fare, which is finally encouraging people off the M1 and into the trains?
Sir George Young: People outside will contrast what they have just heard from my hon. Friend with what they heard from the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott). My hon. Friend has rightly pointed out that we are already seeing improvements in punctuality and reliability as a result of franchising. The long-term savings from privatisation will be substantial; after seven years, the subsidy for the 20 franchises that we have let will be less than one third of that required by British Rail in 1995-96. We are, therefore, getting a better deal for passengers, at less cost to the taxpayer.
Mrs. Dunwoody: Is not the Secretary of State a little frightened of being struck down for the marvellous interpretations of the figures that he manages to give the House? Is not the reality that under some of the new franchises, the old slam-door stock, which is known to be dangerous, is being brought back into operation, painted a new colour and presented as a new service? Is it not true that taxpayers will be paying more after the end of the right hon. Gentleman's machinations, having lost all the assets, than at any other time? Would not it occasionally become the Conservative Government if they just admitted that, in the most brutal and panicky fashion, they have handed bars of gold to all their colleagues in the City in exchange for a worse and unacceptable standard of transport?
Sir George Young: The party that needs to admit that it got it wrong on privatisation is the Labour party, not the Conservative party. As a result of franchising, we are witnessing a £1 billion investment in new rolling stock. There is no way that that sort of investment could have been achieved had the railways remained in the public sector--not under this Government and not under an alternative Government supported by the hon. Lady. We are driving up investment to a far higher level than would have been sustained had the railways remained in the public sector.
Mr. Garnier: When the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) mentioned the slam-door rolling stock that has been painted a new colour, did not my right hon. Friend think of new Labour? Will he ask his Department to cost the amount that the privatised Railtrack and privatised franchise companies will be investing in the railways in the next few years? Were that money to come from central Government funding, how much would that cost the British taxpayer?
Sir George Young: The figure for Railtrack is £8 billion spend over five years and the figure for rolling stock investment, which I have just given to the House, is £1 billion. That investment is not coming out of the public sector, and it no longer has to compete with funds for health, education and law and order. The public sector constraint has disappeared. As with other privatisations, railway investment has been driven up fast after privatisation.
London Underground (Privatisation)
10. Mr. Spearing: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what studies he has carried out concerning the practicability of privatising London Underground.[13354]
Mr. Bowis: We are examining whether the benefits of privatisation can be extended to London Underground. We shall announce our conclusions once that work has been completed.
Mr. Spearing: Does the Minister agree that there would be a further disbenefit to London from the further disintegration of public passenger transport? Is he not aware that London Transport, the pride of the world's transport systems, was introduced by Herbert Morrison in a Bill in this place? It was initially passed by a Labour Government and passed again by a Conservative Government in 1933. Would not privatisation be disadvantageous to Londoners because, by order, public property would have to be disposed of at a knock-down price? Londoners would also have to continue to pay taxes to subsidise not just the natural subsidy that must be paid, but the profits of the operator. That might conceivably be disadvantageous to the Conservative party at the election.
Mr. Bowis: The hon. Gentleman is selective in his use of history. I think that he will recall that much of the London underground started as projects of private railway companies, which put the necessary Bills through the House--as did those responsible for the main line rail services. As I said in my initial answer, we are looking carefully to see whether the benefits of privatisation could sensibly apply. If they did, all the relevant requirements and guarantees--for example, those on fares, the levels of service, travelcards, concessionary fares and so on--would have to be included in a Bill .
If the hon. Gentleman wants to see the advantages of privatisation, he need look no further than the privatised railway companies where the number of complaints has been falling, passenger numbers are going up, and reliability, punctuality and new investment are improving. That is certainly something of which we need to take note.
Mr. John Marshall:
Will my hon. Friend confirm that, if London Transport were to be privatised, a regulator would ensure minimum standards of service, maximum levels for fares and the continuation of the concessionary fares scheme which is so vital to pensioners across London?
Mr. Bowis:
Leaving aside the detail of regulators and so on, I can certainly reassure my hon. Friend that we would not proceed with a privatisation proposal that did not ensure exactly the reassurances that he and, I think, the majority of Londoners want. That would be in stark contrast to anything that I have heard so far from the Opposition about their policies, which would give no new investment, no new lines and no new money to London's transport services.
Ms Glenda Jackson:
Do the Government intend to make any detailed departmental announcement to the House regarding their impractical and deeply unpopular proposals to privatise London Underground, or will such a statement emanate, as has been reported,
Mr. Bowis:
What a load of nonsense. I yield to nobody in my admiration for the public servants who work for the Government of the day and who work to enable them to propose sensible and workable schemes. The hon. Lady is quick to dismiss a proposal that has not even been announced yet; I suggest that she waits, although I can understand her anxiety for it to be introduced quickly. She now recognises--or, if she does not, at least her hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) now recognises--that privatisation has brought benefits in many parts of the transport system and she wants to see whether we have proposals to enable those benefits to be available to London's underground system.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |