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Points of Order
3.44 pm
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Can you help the House by confirming that a substantial proportion of yesterday's business was, indeed, Government amendments to their own Bill; and that it is impossible that time was wasted yesterday, as you and other occupants of the Chair would have ensured that no such thing could possibly happen?
Madam Speaker: Anyone--hon. Members or those outside the House--who reads Hansard will find that the right hon. Gentleman is quite correct, in that there were Government amendments which were debated.
Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Leader of the House has made what appears to be a misleading statement, and I am sure that she will want to correct it. She said that there were no new clauses or amendments tabled of which the Government had not given notice and that were not foreshadowed by the Bill, yet there were five new clauses and 30 amendments that were not mentioned in Committee. She needs to make it absolutely clear that that was why serious discussion was needed at the beginning of the debate: the new provisions had been nowhere near the Bill and so represented an abuse of the House.
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. I am happy to make clear what I said, which is not what the hon. Gentleman says I said. I said that it is my understanding that no issues were raised yesterday of which people had not been previously aware in other ways: for example, they were in the Budget, if not in the Bill. As for misleading the House, the hon. Gentleman himself yesterday gave the House wrong information when he said that none of the matters had been before the House, so there had been no opportunity to comment on them--
Mr. Duncan Smith: Thirty amendments.
Mrs. Beckett: It is no good his shouting at me--what he said yesterday was not true. The new clause on maternity allowances to which he referred yesterday was
known to the House and had been tabled prior to the last business statement. The hon. Gentleman is trying to defend himself. This business has been before the House for two weeks--[Interruption.]
Madam Speaker: Order. I want no more comments from sedentary positions.
Mrs. Beckett: This business has been before the House for two weeks. At no point has any member of the Opposition asked for extra time or said that fresh matters were being raised, or drawn attention to concerns about time needed for debate. If the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) is too incompetent to realise when he needs more time, that is his problem, not ours.
Madam Speaker: Order. We are now into debate and I shall not allow debate on points of order. Hon. Members have pressed me to get a debate on Kosovo today and an enormous number want to speak in the debate, but half of them will be disappointed. I have the business of the House to safeguard. I shall take two more points of order in the hope that that will be the end of them.
Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. This is not the first time that the Leader of the House has said specifically that there are no historical precedents for debating motions of substance when British troops are in action--
Madam Speaker: Order. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is raising a point of order with me, but I said earlier that we are considering a very narrow business statement. If the hon. Gentleman seeks to catch my eye during business questions on Thursday, I will certainly call him. If he can cite a precedent now, I will listen to him.
Sir Peter Tapsell: The famous munitions debate in 1916 and the Wardlaw-Milne motion of censure against the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, in 1942 are two famous parliamentary examples of substantive motions debated when British troops were in action. Therefore, the right hon. Lady's comments are simply not true.
Madam Speaker: We shall now proceed to the ten-minute rule Bill.
Rural Transport
3.46 pm
Mr. David Prior (North Norfolk): I beg to move,
- That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for rural transport partnership schemes, administered and operated by voluntary groups, parish and town councils, to supplement bus services in rural areas.
My constituency is typical of many rural constituencies. There is only one town, North Walsham, with a population of just over 10,000, and population density is fewer than one person per hectare. Many parishes have no regular bus services and, without motor cars, people living in small villages are literally cut off. Only last weekend, I met in the lively village of Great Snoring a constituent whose bus service had been terminated at two days' notice, thus preventing her from shopping in Norwich.
To make matters worse, the loss of many local community services, post offices and village shops, and the decline of farming jobs has meant that people who live in the countryside can continue to do so only if they own and use private cars. In North Norfolk, as in many other rural areas, a car is a necessity, not a luxury, and money will, if necessary, be diverted from other household expenditure in order to run it.
In spite of that fact, taxes on petrol and car ownership continue to rise. Such taxes hit rural people far harder than their city counterparts, not only because of the lack of public transport and local services, but because of the distances that must be travelled. Those taxes are beginning to make it difficult for retired pensioner couples to afford to run their own car. For many rural pensioners, the private car is the only realistic way of interacting with the outside world. Moreover, it is virtually impossible for anyone living in a small rural parish to hold down a full-time job without access to a car. That makes it particularly hard for young people and school leavers who are looking for work, but who do not have the money to buy or run a car or motorbike and cannot travel to work without one. Isolation is a serious issue in the countryside.
Some 20 per cent. of the population of Norfolk is over retirement age. In some areas, the proportion is much higher than that. Combined with the fact that wages in Norfolk are 15 per cent. below the United Kingdom average and that public transport is poor, it means that people potentially suffer social exclusion, missing opportunities for employment, training, leisure and shopping, and even find it difficult to access medical services. A survey conducted last year for the new deal and undertaken by jobcentres across Norfolk revealed that some 32 per cent. of those seeking work in rural areas experience problems with transport.
The Government need to remember that, by trying to solve urban environmental and congestion problems by continually raising taxes on petrol and car ownership, they are significantly contributing to the social exclusion and deprivation of rural people. Further tax increases on petrol should form no part of the Government's rural transport policy.
The Government have claimed that their tax policy is part of an attempt to increase the use of public transport, but real choice can be achieved only when there is good public transport. People will be persuaded to leave their cars at home only when they have the alternative of cheap, reliable public transport that does not involve significantly longer journey times.
"The Better Deal for Norfolk" report, issued by Norfolk county council in August 1998, stated that Norfolk had received a Government grant of £1.6 million for new and improved rural bus services. That was welcomed at the time with a great fanfare. However, that subsidy is not working satisfactorily; indeed, a number of bus routes have been cut or reduced.
Some services run only in school term time, which is not much help to a pensioner with a weekly shop to do. Buses have been rerouted and many elderly people find that they have to walk a considerable distance to get to the bus stop. There is little cohesion between various providers of public transport. Timetable changes are made without warning or any apparent consultation with users. Fares have gone up by as much as 40 per cent. instead of the expected 5 per cent.
Some 75 per cent. of the parishes in my constituency do not have a daily bus service. Those parishes that are lucky enough to have such a service find that it is often unsatisfactory. Many bus stops are not in a convenient place, and the timetables are incomprehensible, out of date or do not integrate with other forms of transport. In addition, many of the buses run at inconvenient times, making a half-hour shopping trip last three or four hours. On top of all that, the buses are unreliable. Routes are changed without notice, and many of the vehicles are in poor condition and of a size unsuitable for small country lanes.
Moreover, the subsidies have had two unfortunate side effects. First, because the subsidy is not available for existing routes, the new routes are competing with the existing commercial routes on an unfair basis. Many of the new routes overlap considerably with the old routes. Secondly, the new routes are not prime because they cannot support a commercial service, so the buses are often under-utilised, and many of them are of a size that cannot be catered for on small country lanes.
On some routes, a subsidy has seriously undermined existing commercial structures. It would be far preferable to subsidise, if necessary, existing routes by making them more frequent and regular than to direct all available investment to new routes.
The aim of my Bill is similar to that of the rural transport partnership scheme for King's Lynn and West Norfolk district council and Breckland district council, which was announced last week and which aims to promote the social inclusion of rural people by enhancing rural transport services and securing a long-term improvement in people's access to jobs, services and social activities in rural areas.
My Bill would support local community-based projects, such as minibus brokerage schemes--which make better use of vehicles--rural dial-a-ride programmes and group hire. Flexible feeder taxi buses, community car schemes, post buses, local bus services and rail feeder services, coupled with vastly improved local publicity and marketing of all types of public and community transport, can make a vital difference to people's lives at relatively little cost. It is therefore crucial that funding is made available to encourage those community schemes and is not concentrated only on new bus services.
Decision making should be left to local voluntary groups and town and parish councils, which should have the resources to facilitate various schemes, such as car links, community car schemes, hospital car services and others that I have mentioned. As Norfolk county council said, when welcoming the rural transport partnership:
"The exciting element of this new approach is that for the first time it gives many grassroot organisations the chance not only to identify their particular problems but to be part of an action plan to provide practical solutions."
To conclude, the car will remain a necessity inthe countryside for the foreseeable future, and the Government should review their policy on the taxation of cars and petrol for rural drivers. The subsidies paid to new bus routes are not achieving the desired results, and the allocation of the subsidy should be reviewed to enable it to be used to improve existing routes. Finally, part of the bus subsidy should be reallocated to community transport schemes to provide the cost-effective, flexible local service required in small villages and the countryside.
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