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Mr. Prescott: The previous Administration gave exactly the same powers and resources to the British Railways Board--they already exist, and will be transferred to the Strategic Rail Authority. In respect of financing facilities, we have made it clear that it is not our intention to renationalise the railways. We made that judgment before we came into office. We want to make the system work. It is not necessary to have the borrowing powers to which the right hon. Gentleman refers. I said that I would report back on reconstruction because, as we know from the experience of the British Railways Board, whenever the debts were reconstructed, there had to be a report to Parliament.
Mr. Redwood: I take that to be some kind of reassurance that the provisions will be used only for existing debts and not for new debts. However, that is not how the Bill reads. The Bill gives extremely wide-ranging and open powers; it leaves open the large amount of money--well in excess of what is needed--to handle the existing debts. The Secretary of State himself told us that about £1 billion of inherited debt had to be dealt with under the measure. We are entitled to ask why he needs a £3 billion borrowing limit for the body, when he thinks that the problem is about only one third of that amount. That is most suspicious.
Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire): Is my right hon. Friend aware of paragraph 73 of the Government's response to the PAC report? On the question of whether they would be interested in renationalisation, it states
- "we have made clear that renationalisation would be . . . expensive, and cannot be a priority."
Mr. Redwood: My hon. Friend has drawn out an interesting point--it is an interesting exchange. If the Bill is passed unamended, it will give the Secretary of State all or most of the powers that he would need to renationalise portions of the railway, and to set up a new nationalised railway or tramway system--or both--in parallel with the existing privatised industry. The measure offers no guarantees as to fare competition. There is nothing about fare levels and the rate of return that would have to be earned in order to secure fair competition. Some people in the industry are extremely worried by these wide-ranging powers. This whole piece of legislation has been dogged by controversy and trouble.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish): Is not the right hon. Gentleman's argument that the Bill needs careful scrutiny rather odd given the reasoned amendment, which complains about the scrutiny process?
Mr. Redwood: I was just coming to our reasoned amendment. We believe that today's debate shows that the Secretary of State has failed to carry his colleagues. The Bill was cancelled last year and delayed this year and
it might--if the right hon. Gentleman is lucky and we are unlucky--arrive late in the next parliamentary year. Today's debate is therefore a misuse of the House's time. We would be happy to have Second Reading and go straight into a Standing Committee in which the Bill could be given the detailed scrutiny it needs. If the Secretary of State is willing to proceed in that way, my right hon. and hon. Friends and I are more than willing to sit on such a Committee, starting as soon as possible, to give the Bill the necessary scrutiny. However, the right hon. Gentleman is no position to deliver. He has obviously been vetoed by the Prime Minister and other members of the Government, so the Bill has been shunted off into a siding and cannot make proper progress.
Mrs. Dunwoody: As the Chairman of that particular siding, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman one simple question? Are we to take it that he does not approve of Select Committees performing a pre-legislative function, or is it simply that he objects to my Committee performing that function?
Mr. Redwood: I have no objection to the Committee considering the Bill, and may it take a good long time: there is much in the Bill that is disturbing, and I am not the one trying to rush through those provisions. However, let us look at matters from the perspective of the Secretary of State, who tells us that the Bill is crucial to his strategy and that he cannot have an integrated transport policy without it. If that is so, why are we having a Second Reading debate now, but no Standing Committee to follow? Why cannot the right hon. Gentleman get the Bill through more quickly?
Why is the Bill being offered to the Select Committee? If the scrutiny that the Select Committee is to give it is truly pre-legislative, why have Second Reading? Why not have proper pre-legislative consideration in the Select Committee, whose members are wise and whose scrutiny would be useful? Then, the Government could amend the Bill and return to the House with a proper Bill that had been properly considered, on which we could then have a Second Reading debate. That would be far more welcome to us than the bodged approach that is being taken today.
Mr. McLoughlin:
The Secretary of State never addressed one of the points raised in our reasoned amendment. Why is the Bill being treated differently from all the others, which have been referred to Select Committees before Second Reading? Is it not the case that the process being used is a panic measure, initiated by Downing street to cover up the botch job that the Secretary of State has made of transport policy?
Mr. Redwood:
That is the only possible explanation. There has obviously been a compromise: the Secretary of State said that he must have his Bill, but the Prime Minister said that he could not have it, so they hit upon the ridiculous compromise--a camel instead of a horse, with everyone getting the hump--of the Bill being given Second Reading and then going off to the Select Committee, rather than through a proper Standing Committee.
Mr. Prescott:
I have made it clear on several occasions that the real problem with the legislative timetable is what
It will be useful to hon. Members and to people outside to know the House's opinion on the powers contained in the Bill. I hope that the House and the Select Committee will give the Bill an overwhelming endorsement. The right hon. Gentleman has not yet said whether or not he supports the Bill, and it would be useful to know that. If the House expresses its support in a vote today, it will be clear that the current actions of the shadow Strategic Rail Authority are consistent with the will of the House.
Mr. Redwood:
In that spirit, I shall press on to address the Bill itself, even though my right hon. and hon. Friends and I still think that we are following an odd procedure--one that tells us more about the divisions in the Government than about the need for proper scrutiny--or the need for a Railways Bill, which the Secretary of State has urged on his colleagues for many months.
The Opposition are worried that the powers in the Bill are too wide ranging and lack specific drafting through which they can be controlled. I draw the House's attention to several of the important clauses. The purposes of the authority have already been read out to the House by the Secretary of State. They are extremely wide ranging and should be read in conjunction with the powers to borrow, direct, invest and spend money. The authority is allowed to promote the use of the railway network, to secure development of it and to contribute to the development of an integrated system of transport.
Mr. Tony McNulty (Harrow, East):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Redwood:
I will not give way to someone who has not been present throughout the debate. The hon. Gentleman should listen a little more before intervening. I have given way to everyone else.
The wide-ranging purposes are backed up by the most enormous powers, which would leave the Secretary of State and his creature--the quango--free to run a railway within a railway and to buy up chunks of the existing network. Under clause 6(3), the Secretary of State is the person pulling the strings. The quango may be apparently independent, powerful, expensive and all such wonderful things--many millions of pounds will be spent on it--but the Secretary of State can be in charge if he so wishes. He can give the authority directions and guidance over all its strategies, stipulating what should be covered by them,
Mr. Geraint Davies:
May we have clarity? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there should be a
"the issues to be taken into account . . . the strategy to be adopted in relation to any matter",
and how to update such strategies. That is extremely comprehensive. The Secretary of State wants to buy a train set to play with, and this Bill gives him the crucial powers.
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