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Mr. St. Aubyn: The SRA will receive £100 million in its first three years to deal with bottlenecks, but there are many of them. Does the hon. Gentleman know how much it would cost to put right just the one at Reading?
Dr. Whitehead: I do not have the exact figures before me, and the hon. Gentleman makes a good point. However, a company is not likely to put bottlenecks right if it bases its calculations simply on likely income from track access charges. Strategic investment for the whole railway system would make it work better.
Mr. Kerry Pollard (St. Albans): Is my hon. Friend aware that Railtrack has identified 20 bottlenecks that require the urgent attention and serious investment that the SRA could provide?
Dr. Whitehead: Yes. I recently read details of the bottlenecks and the investment required to correct them, and I am sorry that I do not have those details to hand.
Mr. Gerald Howarth: As I have pointed out to several hon. Members, Railtrack has no interest in reducing the number of trains that gain access to the system, and everything to gain if even more trains use its system, thus generating more access charges. Far from encouraging bottlenecks, Railtrack fully intends to eliminate them and is setting aside £27 billion over the next 10 years.
Dr. Whitehead: That may well be true in the world of F. A. von Hayek. The hidden hand of the market may
work in perfect competition, but it does not work so well in the specific circumstances in which Railtrack collects its income and takes, and proceeds with, its investment decisions. Secondly, as the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee has noted, the huge sum that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned looks less enormous when it is broken down. In fact, it is insufficient for the necessary strategic plans.
The difficulty in investing for the future is anticipating demand for services. The present regulation system makes it difficult to predict change, which is why the SRA is important. The travelling public know that rail privatisation has been desperately unsuccessful when considered against the claims made for it. Some improvements have occurred, but failure to deliver services punctually or even to keep them running is increasing. Substantial reinvestment is required, and there is a significant investment backlog. A sea change is required in our rail freight policy.
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford):
I am no expert on railway matters, but my constituency is an important local railway centre. The network that traverses the south of England passes through our station, and many trains from London to the south coast cut across it too. Some 40 per cent. of rail commuters in south-west Surrey use Guildford station. In my two years as the local Member of Parliament, there have been substantial changes--on balance, for the better--in services at Guildford. South West Trains recently increased the number of services from Guildford to Waterloo--a journey of just over 30 minutes--from three an hour to four, and two of those four trains are modern, automatic-door trains, not the slam-door type. Even for those who are disabled, access to London is much improved by the benefits of railway privatisation.
I regularly use the service to come to this place, but I also use other networks. I frequently travel to the west country, and when I canvassed in the Eddisbury by-election, I enjoyed the benefits of Virgin Trains. I have heard much criticism, but Virgin's first-rate service to Crewe arrived pretty much on time, and the return was on time too. It was a most convenient way to reach my destination. As for the people of Eddisbury, I heard not one complaint about rail privatisation as I canvassed the constituency--most people said that they intended to
support the Conservative candidate--but I heard many complaints about the Government's failure to deliver on their promises.
Mr. Geraint Davies:
Does the hon. Gentleman agree with Central Trains' proposition to divert freight from throughout Britain through Guildford? That would be a welcome alternative to routeing freight through Croydon.
Mr. St. Aubyn:
I will turn to the difficulties posed to Guildford and other railway centres by the growth in the railways which this Bill will do nothing to address.
We must recognise that, after more than 40 years of secular decline in the share of rail traffic, the policy of privatisation reversed the trend. For the first time, we have seen not only substantial growth in passenger traffic but significant growth in the share of all traffic being taken by rail. That gives the lie to those who have claimed this afternoon that the increase in rail traffic is a product of the growing economy. The volume of traffic varies with the economic cycle, but the share of traffic carried by rail is the key test. According to that test, privatisation was a defining moment: it changed 40 years of decline in the rail industry.
The Government are very confused about the Bill. Within a few months, the Secretary of State said that the railways are a national disgrace and then announced that he could deliver a modern railway only with a full and open partnership between the Government and the industry. Ministers have, on the one hand, tried to play the blame game with the private sector on the railways while, on the other, demanding that the private sector invest more and more money for an uncertain return under the framework that the Government have advanced.
The Government claim to believe in standards, not structures. Yet this Bill is all about structures and promises nothing for standards. I wonder what the Bill's real aims are. Clause 7(2)(c) charges the Strategic Rail Authority to act in a way that is best calculated
Mr. Quinn:
The hon. Gentleman seems to suggest that the privatised railway companies can use the simple market mechanisms to acquire the necessary investment and create the sort of service that his constituents need. How does the hon. Gentleman answer the evidence about the proposed rail authority that was provided to the Select Committee during its last sitting? Railtrack said that it would need assistance of about £100 million to help with the bottlenecks to which my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) referred.
Mr. St. Aubyn:
The hon. Gentleman has almost made a complete speech. I shall come to the issue of bottlenecks,
Bottlenecks pose another problem. There are about 30 bottlenecks in the rail network around the country and it costs about £30 million to cure the typical bottleneck. That is what the signalling at the west end of Leeds station cost, for instance, and experts in the industry estimate that that is the typical cost. Therefore, curing 30 bottlenecks at £30 million a time will cost nearly £1 billion. Yet the Government are providing only £100 million to tackle bottlenecks over three years, which will cure only three of the 30 bottlenecks.
I have a particular interest in this matter as the bottleneck at Waterloo is important to my constituents. That is an urgent consideration. The Government offer no clear solution to that problem in their plans for a Strategic Rail Authority.
Mr. St. Aubyn:
I will not give way. If there is time later, I will be happy to take the hon. Gentleman's intervention.
I draw the attention of the House to another problem that is related to the success of the railways, which the Minister and I have debated before in the Chamber. I refer to the problem of railway noise. Those who live near the busy railway station in my constituency are facingan escalating problem arising out of investment programmes--none of which we want to discourage--including those of Railtrack. There is a particular problem with accountability. Railtrack has used subcontractors to carry out the work. We have written to Railtrack and, time and again, local residents, the council or I have obtained assurances about how work will be conducted in future. However, the message is lost by the time it reaches the subcontractor who is performing the work in our region.
I shall draw the House's attention to several alarming cases. A constituent describes a typical experience. She lives just up the road from the railway station and she writes:
In previous debates, we have already alerted the Government about the need for the Rail Regulator to beef up his act on that matter. In March 1996, the Rail Regulator issued a report on environmental guidance, in which he spoke of
"to promote efficiency and economy on the part of persons providing railway services".
A similar preamble might have been attached to the nationalisation of the railways in the 1940s. It is not the job of Ministers to deliver efficiency and economy; it is the job of the market. The role of Ministers may be to temper the market in the wider social interest, but the idea that ministerial interference or intervention will promote efficiency and economy misunderstands the way in which the open market economy works.
"the Authority will not be required in every case to give effect to its purposes and strategies . . . Some of these considerations could contradict each other, so the Authority must undertake a balancing exercise in each case."
The truth is that the Bill is a complete mess and the explanatory notes show that the clauses are quite confused. The sooner the situation is clarified, the better. I look forward to hearing the speech of the Minister for Transport later this evening--although I am not sure what she will say.
"I do not think we have had an uninterrupted night's sleep this week. On Monday I was woken at 3 am by what sounded like someone throwing bricks at a metal sheet for half an hour."
I could go on as there are many other similar examples. The council has done a lot of work in this area, and its report states:
"the normal background noise level of about 44 decibels was raised for periods as high as 76 decibels which is a loud and intrusive noise level."
On that occasion, Railtrack took nine months to respond to the entreaties of local residents. It has promised that its intense programme of work in our area will end this month. However, we have identified the problem that Railtrack is not subject to the environmental noise rules
under the Railways Act 1993. Breaches of that code are allowed unless councils taking action against Railtrack can show that the noise caused is "totally unreasonable". Experience reveals that that has given Railtrack and its subcontractors far too much leeway. I urged the Government 18 months ago to address that point in any Bill that they might be planning to introduce--such as this one. It will be a profound disappointment to people living near railway stations throughout the country that the Bill makes no specific provision to deal with the problem of railway noise. The Minister for Transport owes us an explanation. When she replies, she should explain why her Strategic Rail Authority is not specifically charged to deal with that problem, which has been raised on many occasions in the House.
"extensive and detailed legislation aimed at protecting the environment".
Apparently, he was not aware that that legislation did not apply to the railways. We need clear guidance for the operators before the measure takes effect. We need a commitment from the Government that powers will be changed when the Bill comes back from the Select Committee.
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