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Mr. Jenkin: Will the hon. Gentleman explain how reducing the availability of the car and people's access to it will increase mobility and freedom? That seems to be what he is arguing.
Mr. Brake: That was not the point that I was making. I was referring to the need to reduce road traffic. An exclusive emphasis on the role of the car, neglecting the fact that one third of people do not have access to one, is socially regressive.
Mr. Gray: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Brake: I am sure that I would be called to order by the Deputy Speaker if I took too many interventions on the same point.
We should move towards taxing the use, not the ownership, of vehicles. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House would agree with that key point. We should increase vehicle excise duty for the least efficient vehicles, and abolish it for those that are most efficient. The Select Committee's ninth report is perhaps too reticent on that subject.
Taxing fuel is fine, but to achieve a reduction in traffic, we must invest in public transport. The motorist must see some gain before a moderate amount of pain. Services and routes provided by different modes of transport must be co-ordinated, and journey terminals should be linked so that switching between bus and train or train and bicycle becomes simple and safe. Many recommendations in the report refer to aspects of such issues.
We should create a strategic transport authority that has responsibility for both rail and bus regulation. I am disappointed that the Select Committee did not take up that option.
We must target journeys that pollute the most and which are easiest to reduce in number. That means two things: giving greater incentives to commuters to use public transport, and reducing the number of people who take their children to school by car. Some progress has been made through the safer routes to school initiative, which I hope will be further expanded. The Select Committee did not overlook such points in its report.
Local authorities have a huge part to play in improving our transport infrastructure. We should allow them to introduce road congestion charging where public transport alternatives are available or under development. Crucially, we must let them keep the revenue from road charging, parking and fines to facilitate reinvestment in public transport. That is covered by recommendation (ppp) of the ninth report.
We have to enable local authorities to use carrots in their fight against congestion. Local authorities will need the financial resources to introduce pedestrian zones,
public-transport-only zones, and home zones with 20 mph limits and traffic calming schemes. Without finance, car-free city centres that are pleasant to live, work and shop in will remain a pipedream. That is why I wholly support recommendation (qqq) of the ninth report, which would give local authorities the ability to raise money for investment on the basis of future revenue streams.
Mr. Graham Stringer (Manchester, Blackley):
I have spent nearly 20 years arguing with the Deputy Prime Minister about aviation policy, trams and regional policy--agreeing more than disagreeing--but I should like to say, in the light of the disputes that there have been, that this country is very lucky to have a Deputy Prime Minister with his experience and expertise. In his response, he acknowledges that the only significant difference between the Select Committee and the Government is on the speed and the amount of resources, not on the general direction in which the Select Committee and the Government are going.
I have watched, listened and read with incredulity the statements by the Conservative Opposition in the past week. If I am right, this morning the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) was saying that people were rushing to get on buses--that competition in the bus industry had worked. Has he actually read the statistics showing what has happened to the bus industry since deregulation in 1985?
There has been a 70 per cent. cut in subsidy. When Conservative Members are clamouring for more resources for road building, for railways and for buses, they should remember that, during their time in office, the money that was going to buses in most of the country was cut by 70 per cent.--in London, between 90 per cent. and nearly 100 per cent. During the same period, passenger numbers fell by 30 per cent. and bus miles went up by 30 per cent. I shall return to that point. Fares rose by 25 per cent. in rural areas and 50 per cent. in urban areas.
In the privatised industry, for 10 years or so there was almost no investment in buses. That destroyed the manufacture of buses in this country; only two factories are left. In fact, the bus industry was a complete mess. We did not get competition at the end of that period; we certainly got a great deal of pollution. That meant extra bus miles and fewer passengers, and as a result the Conservative Government achieved something that one would have thought scarcely possible before their time in office--in many city centres, each bus passenger mile created greater pollution than each car passenger mile. Only the deplorably inefficient system that they had created could have done that.
The Opposition have been saying that competition in the bus industry is working. Admittedly, in the first two to four years after deregulation and the privatisation of much of the industry, there was huge and inefficient competition on the roads in most urban areas, while buses simply disappeared in many rural areas. Road space in cities was wasted. However, we have now left behind the time when buses were driven dangerously and neither cars nor buses could get along our roads.
We are in a post-competitive phase. Circumstantial and direct evidence given by competitor companies is overwhelming in every city. It is that there are cartels and anti-competitive practices. From Manchester, for example, reports and evidence were provided to the Select Committee from a number of bus companies. However, the market is dominated by Stagecoach in the south and by FirstGroup in the north. Rarely do these companies compete with each other. Of course, Greater Manchester is a large area and there are one or two smaller companies.
There have been fascinating interviews. Stagecoach and FirstGroup have been interviewed twice because of their dominant position in the market. Simple questions have been asked. For example, "If Stagecoach has lower fares, better buses, has invested more than FirstGroup, provides a more reliable service and by and large has demonstrated that in Greater Manchester it offers a better service, why does it not compete in the areas of the north where FirstGroup is running a poor, inefficient service with higher fares?" It seems that the company cannot give an answer that would stand up to any criticism. In fact, it is implementing anti-competitive practices. It is almost a cartel. That is to the disbenefit of the travelling public.
That is why the Select Committee and my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, in two interviews, are firmly in favour of re-regulating the bus industry. Whether it is quality contracts or re-regulation, when bus companies are operating as I have described and a Government are determined to improve the public transport system by improving bus services, there is a need for regulation. As my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has said, if four or five extra passengers travel on a bus and that brings £400 million into the bus industry--I think that that is the figure--not all of that money will go into transport improvements or helping the passenger. The money will simply be bottom lined. That is why the Select Committee is in favour of regulation of one--
Mr. Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough and Whitby):
Would my hon. Friend care to speculate on why the previous Conservative Government decided not to take the deregulation route for the capital? Why did they decide that London was a special case?
Mr. Stringer:
Having seen the chaos that had been created in the west midlands, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh, I think that they decided that there were too many marginal seats in London to make it wise electorally to bring the so-called benefits of deregulation to the capital. Wisely, or for self-interest, that was their decision. London is the only part of the country where passenger numbers have not fallen.
For the first time since the second world war, there has been a 1 per cent. increase in the number of people using buses. That is extremely good. It has been brought about
by some of the work done through quality partnerships by various local authorities and passenger transport executives. However, there is scant evidence that motorists are leaving their cars at home or that pensioners or other bus users are using buses more often. Most of the evidence, such as it is, is that those who are already using buses are using them more often rather than people making a modal change. That is important if we are to have the capacity in the public transport system to underpin a thriving economy.
As for metrolink and trams, there has been a dialogue between the Select Committee and the Government, after two reports, about the benefit of light rapid transit systems. In terms of Greater Manchester, one of their benefits is that they are a proven way getting motorists to leave their cars at home. The Manchester tram system, which is an old rail system connected through the centre of the city, is reducing the number of car journeys per year by 2.5 million. That is a terrific benefit to the atmosphere, to the travelling public and to the motorist. The system is being extended to Eccles, and the Greater Manchester passenger transport authority wants to extend it into north Manchester, to Oldham and Rochdale, into east Manchester out to Ashton-under-Lyne and into south Manchester, to the airport.
I hope that the Government will find a way to fund the expansion. Eventually the system will be self-funding, but it needs some initial capital, through a private finance initiative arrangement, the public sector or privately. Later, by using car parking charges or some other means, it will balance.
The benefits to the Government and the travelling public would be enormous. The system would take up to 10 million cars off the road every year and reduce the number of car journeys by 11 million vehicle/kilometres a year. It would create 5,000 jobs and increase the gross domestic product of Greater Manchester by £169 million. It would also benefit the Government by providing an example of an integrated transport system that worked. All of us who care about public transport need that.
The system that would run into Manchester airport would be the first multi-modal interchange that brought together trams, trains, aeroplanes and buses. It is a national disgrace that only two airports in this country are served by fast main-line trains. A tram link would help to ensure that more people used public transport to reach Manchester airport. I should declare an interest as a former director of Manchester airport and as a former member of the Greater Manchester transport authority.
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