| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. David Drew (Stroud): I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that that is indicative of a new style of politics. We are moving towards a consensual approach rather than legislating and then trying to take people along afterwards. I wonder what opinion he has about that.
Mr. Baker: To be honest, that seems a rather odd intervention. I am all in favour of consensual politics, but if legislation is required, it should be forthcoming. I will demonstrate why I believe that legislation is necessary in certain circumstances.
I believe that the Deputy Prime Minister has done a surprisingly good job. He had a very good track record in transport before the general election and everybody acknowledged that he was a good shadow spokesman. He held the then Government to account very well. We were looking for good things from him when he took office in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. I believe also that the junior Minister--I hope that that is not an insult to the Minister for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher)--has done a good job. In fact, the entire Department understands the issues well and pushes them forward. The problem is not within the Department. The problem is that the understanding within that Department is not manifest in other Departments and there is no legislative time for the necessary measures.
Sadly, the Deputy Prime Minister has lost out in the argument for legislative time. He has lost out to the Department of Social Security and others. I am sorry about that because we need environmental measures. We need action on transport in particular. Between 1974 and 1996, the cost of motoring fell by 3.5 per cent., notwithstanding the petrol price increases that the Tories were happy to introduce but are now trying to disown. The cost of rail travel during that time rose by 74.8 per cent. and the cost of bus fares rose by 57.5 per cent. That is not a transport scenario that anyone can support and the free market has made things worse.
In opposition, the Labour party was keen to improve the railway system. It opposed privatisation, as did my party. When privatisation went ahead, the Labour party pledged to renationalise Railtrack, which was also my party's policy at the general election. That was then watered down to the creation of a strategic rail authority, not a strategic transport authority, which is what we really need. That has now been watered down further and we are reduced to having a pale shadow of a strategic rail authority whose powers are unclear and to the Deputy Prime Minister having a meeting with the train operating companies on 26 November when he will shout at them and try to get improvements that way. It is sad that it has come to that.
We have from the Government no cohesive plan to identify and reopen closed stations or lines or to use the potential for passenger transport that is available on some freight lines and there is no plan to identify potential freight terminals. There is confusion, which needs to be sorted out by legislation--that picks up my earlier point--over the allocation of train paths by Railtrack. Railtrack has the power to help passenger traffic at the expense of freight traffic and there is some evidence that it is doing that.
English, Welsh and Scottish Railways, which is one of the successes of privatisation, has a proposal to treble rail freight over the next 10 years. It is a very good company and it is doing very well, but it will not be able to do that unless it gets the necessary train paths. Railtrack is already being unhelpful to that company. That needs to be sorted out by a strategic rail authority and not left in the hands of Railtrack, whose motives are governed by profit rather than what is best for the railways. That is an example of where legislation is necessary for the railways.
There are other problems with the railways. There is a lack of new rolling stock. Anyone who lives in my part of the world, down in Sussex, will know of the poor rolling stock on Connex South Central. The rolling stock on the line from Lewes has been in use since 1963 and that is not untypical of the rolling stock on that franchise.
I believe that Connex is the only franchise that has come up for renewal at this point and the Government's one act has been to refuse to renew the franchise. Of course, the franchise should not be renewed automatically, but in my judgment--I may be wrong--Connex South Central had a package of improvements to the rail service in my area which justified an extension to its franchise. It included new rolling stock, electrification of particular lines and other goodies. It is a shame that that decision was made. I question whether it was made for dogmatic reasons or on the basis of a financial assessment of what was best for the country.
There is worsening punctuality up and down the rail network and rocketing prices in some areas. There is confusion over the young person's railcard and the old person's railcard. The national rail inquiry service improved for a while, but is now getting worse. The level of accuracy is now very good, but there is a question over the length of time it takes to answer a call. Those things are getting worse and need to be sorted out. With the best will in the world, cajoling the railway companies, the train operating companies and Railtrack will not achieve that. It could be achieved only by a strategic rail authority, if then. The fact that such an authority does not feature in
this legislative programme means that we will have another year of misery for passengers on our trains. That is a great pity.
There is a need for legislation on bus transport. As I have said, we should have a strategic transport authority. There is no proper regulator for buses. It is all higgledy-piggledy and, if we are not to have a strategic transport authority, we need an Ofbus. We have seen in the newspapers this week that there are to be massive reductions in long-distance coach trips. Towns such as Weston-super-Mare, which is represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Cotter), will be without their long-distance coach routes. There is no minimum standard or requirement for such coach trips and National Express has just decided to cut them. I do not know whether there was any consultation with the Government, but I suspect that there was not.
The Government say that they are genuinely committed--I am sure that they are--to trying to get people out of private cars and on to public transport, but that is being undermined by the withdrawal of National Express services, the deterioration of rail services and the failure to regulate the bus industry. We need legislation so that the Government can put their intentions into force or they will find that they are pouring water into one end of the funnel while it is coming out of the other. That is a great pity.
Figures show that 59 per cent. of car journeys are under five miles and the school run has increased from 12 per cent. of journeys to 26 per cent. in the past 20 years. The Royal Automobile Club, which is hardly the most environmentally friendly organisation--it says that it is becoming more so--says that 20 per cent. of car journeys could be avoided if other means of transport were used more efficiently. We need a clear lead from the Government, but we have not got it. There are other issues such as through ticketing which need to be dealt with by a strategic rail authority. It is a great pity that those things are not in the Queen's Speech for the forthcoming Session.
Another transport problem involves ferries, which is a great problem for my constituency. It is likely--perhaps even more than likely--that the ferry between Newhaven and Dieppe will be withdrawn. If that ferry is withdrawn, the Government can do nothing about it. In fact, the Government have been helpful. Ministers have responded and looked into legislation and they have held meetings, but there is no regulation of ferry services. It is an important passenger service and, unlike railway line services, it does not need permission to shut. The service can just go and nothing can be done about it. All hon. Members representing constituencies along the south coast, regardless of political party, who support the service will be left high and dry by the lack of regulation. There is a need to introduce legislation to protect essential services, such as essential ferry services.
As I said, there is much to be done. I shall raise very quickly only a couple of other issues on which the Government have not done all that they might do to improve their environmental credentials. There will not be a wildlife Bill, although there is a need to protect flora and fauna across the United Kingdom. The Queen's Speech contained nothing about giving proper powers to existing national parks or about helping the South Downs conservation board in my area.
There was nothing in the Queen's Speech about protecting sites of special scientific interest, for which many hon. Members on both sides of the House have pressed very hard. The fact is that, if one wants to build infrastructure, such as a road, the cheapest way of doing so is to build through an SSSI, which has the least value. Such an approach is mad, and it must be changed. Although hon. Members on both sides of the House think that it would be a good idea to legislate on the matter, the Queen's Speech did not mention it.
Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East):
The hon. Gentleman, like me, is a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, which produced a report a few months ago called "Greening Government". The Government have recently given a response--I read it over the weekend--to the report. Will the hon. Gentleman be gracious enough to admit that the Government have made many promises and agreed with almost all the criticisms that the Committee made in our original report?
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |