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9.8 pm
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish): I welcome the Bill and the proposals for its scrutiny. I have been puzzled by the Opposition. Half the time they have criticised my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for not getting the legislation in fast enough, and the other half they have carped about what is proposed. They should make up their mind: either they want the legislation, and they should try to get it through the House as quickly as possible, or they do not, and they should welcome the fact that it is moving slowly.
The Government have done well in trying to develop pre-scrutiny of legislation. The hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) said that we too often pass legislation that needs to be refined and changed soon afterwards. It is important to get our legislation right before passing it.
Not only scrutiny by the Select Committee but scrutiny by anyone who is interested is important. Everybody in the country can read the legislation, and if they have views on it, they should submit them to the Select Committee, so that by the end of September we have a body of views that can be tested. In some cases, the Committee will ask people to give oral evidence; in others, it will simply look at the evidence submitted. When the Select Committee reports to the House, the Government can refine the proposals to take the public debate into account.
If that important process is done well, I hope that we can get on quickly with the Bill in the next Session of Parliament. If the Opposition genuinely believe that the measures are needed quickly, they could agree to a new carry-over procedure, so that legislation begun in one Session could be completed in the next. That may be a sensible way forward, but I want to emphasise the importance of the pre-legislation scrutiny.
Although I welcome the Bill, a couple of its elements cause me some unease. Clause 29 is a Henry VIII provision if ever there was one, as it would allow the Secretary of State to change previous Acts of Parliament by statutory instrument. What are the Government's intentions with clause 29--or has it been inserted in the Bill simply because the parliamentary draftsmen were worried that the Bill might not cover everything?
I am also worried about closures, the present approach to which is a total farce. In my constituency, there is a railway route that is very hard to justify. For the past seven years, one train a week--when it runs--has travelled in one direction only, from Stockport to Manchester Victoria, merely to provide statutory proof that the line has not closed. The line, which goes through Reddish South and Denton, is useless. The train runs on a Saturday afternoon, but there are good bus services from Stockport to Reddish South or Denton, and the sensible way to get to Manchester Victoria from Stockport is to go to Manchester Piccadilly and catch the metro.
On the whole, the only people keen to use the line are railway buffs wanting to travel every bit of track in the United Kingdom. However, the train is often cancelled, and on those occasions people are told that a taxi will be called for them. Although that may be fine for people who merely want to travel into town, it is an insult to those who want to experience that section of track. It is an example of what happens when there is no proper closure procedure.
I should be very glad if I could claim that Reddish South and Denton stations had a useful function. Unfortunately, they do not fit in with the ways in which local people want to travel to work, to the shops or anywhere else. I therefore accept that they may be closed. Perhaps I could have claimed that it was a matter of civic pride between Denton and Reddish as to which locality had the most rundown, disreputable and scruffy station in the United Kingdom. However, not even that is true, as most people in Denton and Reddish no longer know where the stations are.
I welcome the fact that the Bill will try and sort out the problem of closure. I should love to be able to say that there ought to be no more closures, but it is clear that closures will be necessary in certain circumstances. I hope that the Government will guarantee that more new railway lines and routes will be opened up, so that every closure is balanced by a more effective replacement.
During 18 years of Tory Government, when North sea oil revenues were pouring in, there was very little investment in a proper rail network. I feel very bitter about that. In 1979, when I was narrowly re-elected for the old Stockport, North constituency, I moved house to be near the former Heaton Chapel station. It is just outside my present constituency, but it serves many of my constituents. When I moved to the area, the station sold more than 1,000 tickets a day. Most were for Manchester, fewer to Stockport. Over the years, the decline in the service has sent the number of tickets bought at that station down, and still further down.
Staff were removed, so people did not feel safe to return to the station in the evening. Those who did not feel safe coming home by train did not go out by train in the morning. The station was not attractive; it was allowed steadily to deteriorate. A commuter station that could have reduced the number of cars that travel into Manchester was whittled away, and the service was reduced from every 10 to every 20 minutes.
Services also failed to connect; I used them regularly to come to the House when I could walk to the station in five minutes, spend three minutes on the train to Stockport, wait five minutes there and then join the London train. As frequency and reliability diminished, the local train became less and less attractive. Either my wife
ran me into Stockport or, more recently, I flew to London. The deterioration of the past 18 years must be put right, and I welcome the Bill for that reason.
When we consider closure and development, we must think about the role of light railways, such as the Manchester metro. City centre running is important to the metro, but the lines to Altrincham and Bury are old railway lines. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions will try to find ways in which the line can go to Oldham, which would require conversion of a railway line. It could also go to Audenshaw and Ashton and to the airport on old rail lines.
The critical mass is in place for the metro, and extra investment would allow many people to travel into the centre of Manchester as well as improving the entire network. Greater Manchester has the critical mass to support the metro, which could be turned into a first-class service for the north-west of England and a world-beating system. In considering the Bill, which will help us to move towards an integrated transport system, we should bear in mind improvements to the network for conurbations such as Greater Manchester.
I do not blame the previous Government for the state of Stockport station. It is the local council's fault. A major redevelopment--known as Grand Central--was carried out beside the station. It should have provided a great opportunity to provide a bus and rail interchange, such as is to be found at both Bury and Altrincham in the Greater Manchester area. The local council was keen to gain as much development as possible, however, and building went right up to the station. As a result, the nearest bus is 200 yd away.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex):
As I listened to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett), I made the mistake of thinking, "I hope that he will serve on the Committee, because he will make a useful contribution." However, we are not to have a Standing Committee on this Bill. I shall not dwell on that point at length at this stage because there is a debatable motion on that subject later. Our amendment reflects our belief that the Government's procedure is a mess. It is a feeble attempt by the Deputy Prime Minister to save face after his failure, until now, to find space for this Bill in the legislative timetable. It would have been better ifthe Government had referred the matter informally to the Select Committee and we had started afresh with a new Bill in the new Session.
The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish said that he was looking forward to seeing the Bill play a constructive role in his metropolitan district. The next time that he is speaking to representatives of the passenger transport executive in his area, he might explain how their money will be withdrawn and local matters will be dealt with by the Strategic Rail Authority. As a consequence of the Bill, those representatives will no longer deal directly with train companies operating in that area.
This has been an interesting debate. One advantage of a quiet debate is that there is usually more debate, and that has proved instructive in this case. Several Conservative Members have contributed to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East(Sir T. Taylor) offered a stout defence of the successes of privatisation. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) warned of the thin-end- of-the-wedge nature of the Bill and how its powers could lead us back to a renationalised railway. My hon. Friends the Members for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) and for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) also made contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) described the increased investment that has been achieved under privatisation.
Labour Members have exhibited a curious schizophrenia about the achievements of the privatised rail industry. I have a leaked Labour party briefing that is the Government's response to our "A Fair Deal for Motorists" publication, which has caused the Government many difficulties. The briefing lists Labour's achievements as: 1,000 more train services a day, 16 new train stations, 17 new freight terminals, a massive increase in secure park-and-ride facilities at stations, 433 station car parks with CCTV surveillance, 100 towns with new bus links with through ticketing, and increases in bus investment of 80 per cent. and in rail investment of 33 per cent. All that was achieved while the bus and rail industries were firmly in private sector hands. They have not received assistance from a single dot or comma of Labour legislation. That is the reality. The Labour party is hitting back at Conservative party policy initiatives by pointing to the successes of our privatisation policy.
I remind the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Transport, who is to reply to the debate, that the privatised industries are increasing their investment while those for which the Deputy Prime Minister is responsible--particularly the tube and the road network--have had their investment slashed. That is the achievement of the Labour Government. Sir Alastair Morton, the chairman of the shadow Strategic Rail Authority, addressed a conference on 30 June and said:
"Let me start with a few remarks about the state of our railways, as they seem to me at first sight.
If he had listened to the outrageous propaganda--
First, they are in better shape than I expected".
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