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1.8 pm
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich): The country has waited a long time for a transport Bill that will begin to address what has been, in effect, 20 years of total destruction of an integrated system. In my county, the bright new white rural rider buses are providing desperately needed services for many villages which had been deprived of almost any kind of efficient bus service.
The Government have demonstrated that they are prepared to tackle the important aspects of planning--which will integrate and improve the lives of people in rural and urban areas--and to think in the long term about the needs of a modern society and of the United Kingdom in the next millennium.
Above all, I believe that the decision to include legislation on the railways as part of the new transport Bill will at long last give sufficient muscle to the Deputy Prime Minister to allow him to do what he has long wanted to do, but has been unable to do because he has not had the primary legislation at his command.
The Transport Sub-Committee was honoured to be asked to consider the railways legislation and to make recommendations on aspects that we thought could be improved. Most of us received the bulk of the Bill with acclamation. We took evidence from anyone who wanted to draw attention to particular aspects. Opposition members of the Committee made it clear that they did not regard the process as a means of negating their right to oppose the Bill in its entirety, but they were prepared to take part in the detailed examination of the evidence that was presented to us.
The Strategic Rail Authority is the kind of development that a fragmented and destroyed railway system desperately needs. At the time of privatisation, the previous Government clearly did not consider that the railways would be used by more passengers in the future; they did not care about them. They decided that the system, which was clapped out and had had no real investment for 20 years, should be removed from the Treasury as quickly as possible, irrespective of the chaos that would follow.
Some years after privatisation, the railway system is still in the most appalling mess. Some companies are facing up efficiently to the need for new rolling stock and integrated services, but others are failing disastrously. There are problems not only with time-keeping but with integration between one service and another. Recently, a Labour Member of Parliament was told in my hearing on the west coast main line that the train to Wales would not be held for her because it was run by a different company and the fact that our train would be late meant that the connection would be disregarded.
We still have a long way to go, but the Sub-Committee believed that we should consider certain matters with great care. We want the Strategic Rail Authority to state plainly its aims and objectives for a new rail system and to consider how it can draw certain lines of demarcation. We want the regulator's powers and its relationship with the authority to be set out clearly, and we want safety to be addressed with some urgency.
We considered that many aspects of the legislation are extremely hopeful and should be commended. The SRA will be supported by the general public, who are conscious of the need for the forward planning that has been sadly missing from a system that has been torn apart at the roots. They want better timetable planning and better information, but above all they want to feel that the passengers' interests are at the top of the league of needs.
We hope that the membership of the SRA will include passenger representatives. We think that the existing passenger organisations need greater support; they certainly need proper funding and more immediate powers. Above all, the SRA must represent at the top level the interests of those who use the services. It is not good enough simply to say that we are thinking of changing many aspects of our railway companies without considering the impact on the passenger. Whether passengers are commuting to work or using the services for holidays or business, it frequently seems that their interests are the last thing on the companies' minds.
The acquisition of new rolling stock and the provision of high-quality services must be an urgent matter for the companies. We rely on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to ensure that when the franchises are being renegotiated the Strategic Rail Authority considers not
only the companies' safety record but their investment record and the quality of the service that they are providing now. Frankly, if, after this many years of operation, a company cannot guarantee a good quality of service for its existing passengers, promises about what it will do in the future may ring astonishingly hollow. That is still the case for far too many companies and organisations throughout the rail industry.
Not only do we welcome this long-overdue Bill, but we think that the Strategic Rail Authority will transform much of the planning for railways in the new century. However, safety will inevitably concern everyone using every form of public transport. The references to safety in the Bill were fairly limited because of existing legislation, but the general public will want extra reassurance. Those of us who know about transport know that people who travel by car face safety problems every day of their lives--much more frequently than those who travel by rail or air. Nevertheless, a bad incident, such as the rail crash at Ladbroke Grove, not only makes people deeply concerned, but makes them feel at risk. No matter what reassurances are given by individual companies, people will want to know that legislation is in place to provide that safety measures are the most important aspect in the rail companies' day-to-day operations.
Mr. Gray:
The Bill considered by the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee, on which I serve, is entirely different to that proposed in the Queen's Speech. The new Bill proposes the privatisation of National Air Traffic Services. Does the hon. Lady think that that privatisation will increase air safety, or decrease it?
Mrs. Dunwoody:
I shall come to National Air Traffic Services in a moment, but I should first like to speak briefly about the Railways Bill and the work done by the Select Committee.
My Committee was asked to look, in a pre-legislative way, at an existing Bill. Much time was spent on getting the evidence into a shape in which it could be presented to the House of Commons in quite a short time. I should like to record my appreciation of the work of all members of the Committee, who sat through many hours of evidence. I also wish to thank the Clerks and the support staff--they did a fantastic job of getting the report ready before the end of the previous Session, so that we could consider the reintroduced Bill in this Session. I must say that although this is a useful way of considering legislation, it requires a great deal of work and puts considerable pressure on Members of Parliament and on the support services which Select Committees have at their beck and call. I hope that if this is to become an accepted method of consideration, the House of Commons will think seriously about whether it is prepared to give the Select Committees enough support.
We will expect the SRA not only to set out its aims and objects in very specific terms, but to include new members and passenger representatives. We will expect the Deputy Prime Minister to set out quite precisely the role of the franchising director and the head of the SRA. It would be unfortunate if there were any confusion about the various responsibilities which could have an effect on the railways.
It is also vital that the SRA publish an annual report, which the House of Commons has the right to examine--in common with passenger organisations--and debate. We ought to know what the authority is doing and how efficiently it is being done.
I would have liked more discussion of pensions. When franchises come up again, it will be essential that those who work in the railway industry--existing pensioners and those who expect pensions--should be certain that franchise companies will not regard pension funds as a nice golden pot available for exploitation. It would be quite wrong if pensions funds to which people have contributed over many years became a bargaining chip among the economics of differing franchise companies. I am sure that the Deputy Prime Minister is aware of how sensitive that matter is, and that he will make sure that there can be no doubt about where ownership of the funds lies. There have been problems in the bus industry in the past, and we are sensitive about this matter.
Let me turn to aspects of the Bill that seem fairly controversial. I do not drive. I am driven more often than not, mainly because I have the nasty habit of composing my best speeches after I have left whichever meeting I have just attended, and that is not the ideal frame of mind in which to drive a car. However, I know how deeply wedded people--particularly males--are to their motor cars. I am often astonished that more babies are not born with wheels rather than feet.
Motorists seem frequently to approve wholly of proper transport planning as long as it does not deprive them of their own cars. Unless the Government begin to tackle congestion in our towns and cities, gridlock will soon result. It will not matter how many cars anyone owns as all of them will be sitting in a traffic jam.
Before the general election, my Committee studied countries that have understood the relationship between congestion charging--and motorway tolling, although that is not under discussion at present--and the provision of proper transport services. Norway has tied together charging with the provision of high quality services. People appreciate and respond to that. I do not pretend that motorists in Norway are deeply enamoured of having to pay, whether by smart card or any other means, but hypothecation has enabled them to see the direct link between what they pay and the standard of provision in particular cities.
Unless the Government take charge of congestion in our cities, we shall not be able to move. All the emotive rubbish about how we are trying to deprive people of their little tin boxes may be of use in party political broadcasts, but it runs counter to the basic system of transport planning for the new century.
I shall finish on safety. My Committee recommended the creation of an independent safety authority, not just for railways but for aviation and maritime affairs. We did so because the general public are concerned that when, for whatever reason it may be, an industry hands over some responsibility to private companies, there will be a clash between the interests of directors who are responsible for raising money and profits and the interests of passengers. That fundamental worry is the same for transport by air, rail or sea.
It is essential, therefore, that the Government respond to the clash of interests that the Committee perceived in the Civil Aviation Authority. Putting the safety unit's
responsibilities at arm's length would reinforce people's comfort, and the same would be true of the railway industry. The Deputy Prime Minister has said that he is minded to remove the responsibility from Railtrack, and I want to see fairly urgent action on that. I want Railtrack to be told that it will no longer have the strategic unit within its organisation, because there will be a clash of interests, and from the passengers' point of view it is vital that we are seen to be dealing with that as urgently as possible.
One approach would be to fund an independent unit to cover the inspectorates of all those industries. It would be seen to be independent and would report directly to the Deputy Prime Minister, so it would have a connection with Government that would enable it to set out clearly the need for particular responses both to accidents and to future planning.
People using passenger services, whatever form of transport that involves, want to be convinced that the requirement for their safety is laid down so precisely that the companies have to respond to it and will not be able to say--as, frighteningly, some said even after the latest rail accident--that there might be a point at which they would not tolerate an independent person telling them what safety standards to adopt and what kinds of investment and responses they should make.
I find it extraordinary that in Railtrack, a massive company with direct responsibility for safety, the only person who resigned was the person in charge of public relations. That seems to me to set an interesting standard for responses to such problems. I would have liked the directors of Railtrack to think seriously about whether they should resign, because of their own responsibility and the way in which the public regarded their performance.
As for National Air Traffic Services, I have no doubt that the Government are wholly committed to maintaining safety, but my Committee recommended a number of ways in which non-profit organisations could not only raise the money needed for new equipment, but perform at the same high level of safety as was achieved before, and as we would expect for the future.
I hope that during the passage of the Bill the Deputy Prime Minister will be able to consider carefully what we have suggested. Non-profit organisations seem to me to be the answer. It is not sensible to hand over air traffic control to a private company whatever its nationality--although I find it difficult to worry too seriously about Her Majesty's loyal Opposition's views on foreign ownership. I am afraid that in my constituency both Rolls-Royce and what used to be British Rail Engineering are now German owned, and several other major companies are foreign owned. When I said at the time that I did not think that that was in the national interest, I was informed that my views were narrowly based, nationalist and old fashioned. Indeed, I suppose that the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who speaks for the Opposition, would say that I was old as well, which would automatically disbar me from holding a sensible view.
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