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Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex): The hon. Gentleman is complacent.
Mr. Snape: I am accused of complacency by the sidekick of the hon. Member for Witney. He is another one I would not trust to wind up a Hornby 00 on the nursery floor. The number of SPADs has always been fairly high. The difference between the old days and the present day is that they are impossible to conceal. Present day signalling sensors produce their version of a black box so if a driver passes a signal by a few yards, it is automatically recorded.
In the days of oil lamps and steam locomotives, we kept these things quiet to avoid reporting each other. Those days are now gone, perhaps happily, and the vast majority of SPADs are comparatively insignificant matters, although the ones to which the hon. Gentleman tried to draw the House's attention may well merit further investigation. SPADs ought to be seen in the context of the number of train miles. The appalling tragedy at Paddington ought to be seen in the context of other modes of transport. We are rightly horrified by what took place at Ladbroke Grove junction, but two and a half Paddingtons take place on our roads every week of the year in terms of fatalities, largely without the hysteria--I choose my words carefully--that greeted the latest accident.
I know that it is not a fashionable thing to say, but I shall risk saying it. I hope that I do not get too much odium for it. The final responsibility for driving a train lies with the driver. Drivers at Paddington, Southall or Lewes do not suddenly come on red lights, whether they
are concealed by overhead gantries or whatever. Drivers get a preliminary caution and a caution signal beforehand, both of which must be acknowledged, as must the approach to the red light. Sadly, both the drivers at Paddington paid the ultimate price for whatever went wrong. It appears that the driver of the Thames turbo passed a signal at danger. The fact is that we pay drivers to drive trains.
I took part in various radio programmes following the Paddington accident. One or two former drivers who called in said that they wondered how the present crop of drivers would have handled trains into and out of Paddington in the old days when they were signalled by oil lamps and automatic train control on the Great Western trains. Great Western was more advanced than any of the other train companies. It was operated only on semaphore distance signals. The general view expressed on the radio was that the problem with driving trains today is that it can be seen to be too easy. People become complacent because they sit in the warm environment of a cab pressing the automatic warning system cancellation button in built-up areas all too frequently. Eventually, the inherent weakness of AWS is demonstrated. Drivers press the button approaching a red light, having pressed it passing cautionary signals, whether double yellow or yellow.
The answer is not to rush into spending £1 billion on the advanced form of automatic train protection. The time to spend that money was after the Clapham disaster in 1988. Railway safety and signalling structures and safety measures have moved on since then.
The hon. Member for Witney demonstrated the unfitness of the Conservative party to be in opposition, let alone in government. The Conservatives criticise the Government for what they term their tardy reaction to the Select Committee report. Let me remind the House that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and I were the Opposition transport spokespersons after Clapham in 1988 when Cecil Parkinson, as he then was, pledged as Transport Secretary that £1 billion would be spent and ATP would be provided throughout Britain's railways.
I cannot remember the number of Transport Secretaries between 1988 and 1997.
Mr. Snape:
They came along more frequently than some of the trains did in those days, as my hon. Friend reminds me. The pledge so publicly given in 1988 was never implemented by the Conservative party.
Mr. Woodward:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Snape:
Although the hon. Gentleman refused to give way to me, I will demonstrate that I am a little more mature by giving way to him.
Mr. Woodward:
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he has demonstrated his maturity in spades by doing so. I draw to his attention the remarks made by the Labour Minister for Transport in another place. He said on only 6 October this year:
Mr. Snape:
The hon. Gentleman quotes out of context. He makes a clever public school debating point that has no relevance to what took place between 1988 and 1997. That pledge was given publicly and never implemented. There may well be good reasons why it should not be implemented now. I have tried to explain some of them.
Railway signalling and safety practice has moved on considerably since 1988. The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but let me tell him that on the west coast main line, when it is ever modernised--someone said that in a good week its modernisation is announced twice and there is a press conference to follow--ATP will not be of any value. For much of the line, the visual signals will presumably be removed. We will have the continental system of signalling in which the maximum speed for that stretch will be shown to the driver, and if he exceeds it, the brakes will come on automatically. But that is not ATP; we have moved on from there.
I hope that Sir David Davies will not seriously say that we should spend £1 billion on yesterday's technology, given the changes that are likely to transform railway signalling practice in the years to come.
Ms Claire Ward (Watford):
Is my hon. Friend aware that TCS, the continental train control system to which he referred, is part of the contract for the updating of the west coast main line?
Mr. Snape:
I am sure that that is the case. Tilting trains will not work to their proper capability without it. In the meantime, we cannot go on, year after year and, in some cases, month after month, having drivers pass signals at danger.
I do not want to prejudge the results of the inquiry into the Lewes accident, but it appears that a driver set off from a platform against a signal at red. That is a pretty common phenomenon in recent years. Mr. Stanley Hall, who was British Rail's safety expert, wrote a book about train accidents in recent years. That phenomenon is known as "ding, ding and away". It happens so often that, on much modern railway stock, including, as I understand it, the Connex South Eastern trains which were involved at Lewes, an additional safety system is fitted--a driver's reminder device--which, if the signal controlling the exit from the platform is at danger, should be applied in the cab to remind the driver not to pull away if the station staff give him the proceed indication. If that was the case on this occasion--my information is that it was, but I do not wish to prejudge the inquiry--spending £1 billion on ATP is not much good if drivers are incapable of doing the basic part of their job, which is what that particular case amounts to.
Some of my hon. Friends believe, as the papers did in their hysterical reaction to Paddington, that the disaster was all down to privatisation. There are some aspects of privatisation and railway safety about which the House should be concerned. The number of interfaces between the various people involved in railway safety is far greater
than it ever was with a publicly owned railway system, but it is not in the interests of Railtrack or the train operating companies to have rail accidents. To put it bluntly, they are bad for business. They will not wish such situations to arise.
Those of my hon. Friends who believe that the Treasury would have provided ATP--it did not provide it under a Conservative Government from 1988--should take a train up to Manchester. The hon. Member for Witney heard me recount this story at the Railway Development Society meeting. Before they get to Manchester, they will pass through Stockport where they will see a signal box where I used to work nearly 40 years ago. That was supposed to be removed as part of a modernisation scheme, but it is still there.
Let no one be kidded into believing that the Treasury will provide unlimited funds to modernise Britain's railway system. The privatisation argument is over. We must ensure that there are no further Paddingtons which can be attributed to the number of people who have to be consulted before fairly basic and simple changes are made to the railway network. The fact is that the Treasury never provided for railway safety under successive Governments, Labour and Conservative alike. We are where we are today, and we must go forward on the basis of the private operators and Railtrack.
"to be fair to the previous administration, they weren't able to take action on introducing new systems because other alternatives weren't available."
Does he disagree with the Minister?
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