| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Quinn: Will the hon. Gentleman explain how, under the system that he is outlining, the current track constraints would be dealt with? How would more freight be able to come on to our network and sit happily alongside passenger services?
Mr. Gray: The hon. Gentleman makes a partially reasonable point, which is that Railtrack has less incentive than train operating companies or freight companies to provide the service that customers want because access charges are unlikely to increase in direct proportion to the amount of investment that would be necessary to remove the bottlenecks that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, such as those around Reading.
The Strategic Rail Authority may well, therefore, have a role in telling Railtrack what it must do, even though those instructions may not be commercially of the first order. However, Railtrack may be inclined to do what the authority suggests, because the more passengers there are on trains, the more access Railtrack will be able to charge for. Even Railtrack has an in-built reason, albeit to a lesser extent than the train operating companies, for wanting ever-improving services for passengers and freight.
It is curious that when people talk about the railways, as when people in my constituency discuss GWR, they constantly criticise the present and look back to what they believe to have been the golden age before privatisation, when trains ran on time and were clean, warm and dry and we had first-class sandwiches and every service was brilliant. The reality was woefully different. Apart from the weather, one of the favourite topics of conversation for the British is the inadequacies of our transport systems, whether by road, rail, air or sea.
For 40 or 50 years, British Rail provided one of the worst services that I have ever seen anywhere in the world, and I have travelled the railways around the world. Our service was absolutely appalling. Privatisation has already begun to take significant steps towards providing the service that people want. I do not believe that an entrepreneur such as Richard Branson would take on a business and then provide a service that people do not want. He will make the service first class, as he has done with his airline. He will charge people a decent price, he will make a profit, and he will personally make a great deal of money out of the service. I say, "Well done" to him, although the sour faces of Labour Members demonstrate what they think about the profit motive.
The truth is that privatisation works well. The £2.7 billion of investment by Railtrack and other investment by train operating companies and others will mean that in 10 or 15 years, we shall be able to look back at the debate and say, "Privatisation worked well and delivered to the people precisely what they wanted."
Conservative Members are not opposed to the SRA, but we do not believe that it will deliver the results that some hon. Members have claimed for it this evening. We do not think that it is a magic wand that will turn what was, until privatisation, a rundown railway into the modern, attractive railway that we all want.
The Bill is typical of so much of what new Labour does. It gets as far as the launch and clever expressions such as, "The SRA--driving the railways forward to the new century." There is spin and cleverness, but when we read the Bill, we find that there is not much in it. One of my hon. Friends said that the Association of Train Operating Companies is reasonably happy with one or two of the Bill's proposals, but it also says that the proposals are missing other proposals that would have made it a much better Bill.
We have reservations about clause 7 because we are concerned about the authority's purpose and function. No less an authority than the House of Commons Library said:
The Bill is by no means what we are looking for. We have some significant reservations about the way in which it is being considered, and we will have an opportunity to express those later this evening. The Bill is an inadequate, face-saving manoeuvre by the Secretary of State, who has offered so little in terms of transport legislation so far. The Government have had two years of dithering and delay on rail policy. Now is the time for the Government to start to deliver on their promises.
Mr. Kerry Pollard (St. Albans):
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Cryer), I have fond memories of steam. I remember standing with my father on a footbridge 200 yd from our local station as a great thundering black beast hurtled down the line towards us. I remember standing in fear, but with some excitement, as the steam enveloped me. Since then, I have been
Mr. Pollard:
Absolutely. The highlight of that nostalgia was my time spent on the footplate of the Britannia, a blue-liveried steam engine--a truly tremendous thing.
I welcome the Bill, and I commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for introducing it. It has been sorely needed since privatisation. Much has been made of the importance of freight in our economy, and the increasing importance that it will have over the next few years. So important is it that, about a year ago, the all-party rail freight group visited Newark, New Jersey. I must say that Newark is not the most picturesque part of the United States. None the less, we took note of what went on there.
I remember in particular seeing the train from Chicago come in one morning. It had four engines pulling it and one at the back, and took 10 minutes to go past. I have never seen a train like it in my life. The train was double-banked, with one container on top of another.
The United States is much further forward than we are. It has the advantage of space, with massive freight liner depots covering hundreds of acres--something we cannot manage because of the green belt and the scarcity of land. America also has massive sidings. American railways are cost-effective because of the huge distances travelled. The distance from Chicago to Newark was 900 miles, and the train took all night. We cannot match those distances, but if we took into account the journeys through the channel tunnel and into Europe, our journeys would become cost-effective, as we could add the mileage done abroad to that done in this country.
In my constituency, 12,000 travellers a day commute by rail into the City. This number is increasing year by year at the rate of about 12 per cent. The system is just about coping. Some trains are seriously overcrowded, which causes great concern for passenger safety. The main provider is Thameslink, and Silverlink provides the rest of the services on another line.
Several thousand commuters a day still drive to London from my constituency. I am sure that some could be persuaded on to the rail network if the service were reliable, cheap, comfortable and safe. Thameslink is trying its best to improve comfort and safety for passengers. It is scouring the country for spare suitable rolling stock, so far to no avail. The strategic authority could help with that.
I have regular meetings with the operators. They want rail to succeed and are anxious to invest, but for reasonable risk borrowing they need the comfort that future assured franchising will bring. One of the main constraints on improving rail services in my constituency is the decision--shortly to be made, I hope--on the St. Pancras box, which is connected with the channel tunnel. I urge my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to get the matter sorted out as rapidly as possible.
There is a single-line service from St. Albans to Watford, linking several villages and then connecting to Euston. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport visited the line some time ago. It carries hundreds of passengers a day, providing a vital link for workers and shoppers. There is a proposal to do away with the line and install a bus route over the track. I oppose that, and I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that any line closure would need his express approval. We in St. Albans welcome that, and I am sure that my friends in the Abbflyer group will be delighted at his intervention.
"Clause 7 is rather confusing: it states that the Authority shall exercise its functions"--
the next part is very new Labour--
"'with a view to furthering its purposes in accordance with any strategies which it has formulated with respect to them.' The Explanatory Notes on the Bill do not make this much clearer. It says: 'However, the Authority will not be required in every case to give effect to its purposes and strategies regardless of all other considerations. Rather, it will be required to exercise its functions . . . so the Authority must undertake a balancing exercise in each case.'"
That is completely meaningless waffle, like so much else in the debate about the SRA and the Bill. We have reservations about clause 8 and the way in which the SRA is to be funded. That was a matter on which the Committee was divided, with Conservative Members making it clear that we were not happy.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |