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Mrs. Dunwoody: If my right hon. Friend will forgive me, I shall not give way; I am very much up against time.
It does not help the debate to persist in saying that Exeter, Guernsey or Luton airports are comparable to London air traffic space. They are not. The arguments must be better thought out, better argued and, above all, fundamentally examined with great care by a Labour Government before they go down such a path.
Sir Brian Mawhinney (North-West Cambridgeshire):
I listened with interest to the Deputy Prime Minister. I hope that he will understand what I mean when I say that I was strongly reminded of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus.
I recall the right hon. Gentleman's splenic outbursts during the rail privatisation process, so I could not resist a smile when he told us this afternoon that the National Air Traffic Services could be sold only for what the market would pay for it. He totally denied such a point in our discussions some years ago. I welcome the fact that he has put all that juvenile abuse and offence behind him, and that, to some degree, has cut himself off from the ideological baggage that is so reminiscent of old Labour and is now seeking to address what he and I would recognise as some of the real issues on the railway system. To the extent that the Transport Bill improves what we put in place, I welcome it.
Mr. Prescott:
The right hon. Gentleman will recall our saying at the time that it would be foolish to privatise the railways just before the election, because the selling price would be affected--a complaint that has been echoed by Select Committees. The Administration responsible for the privatisation of British Telecom had the sense to wait until after the election. The Government responsible for the privatisation of the railways did not wait, and sold them for less than market value.
Sir Brian Mawhinney:
I call to mind the efforts made in the City by the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues to talk down the price as much as they could.
My first point relates to the background of funding and expenditure to which the Secretary of State drew attention when, with a degree of fanfare, he announced that he would muster £80 billion of expenditure, both public and private, to spend on this country's transport system over the next 10 years. I thought that a strange figure, so I asked the House of Commons Library for the figures for total Government expenditure on transport in the United Kingdom under the last Conservative Government. The answer was that, in 1996-97, total managed expenditure was £8.7 billion. For spending to be the same this year in real terms--that is, adjusted by the gross domestic product deflator--it would have to be £9.4 billion.
If spending were to remain at the same real level over the ensuing 10 years, it would total £105 billion at 2 per cent. inflation, £111 billion at 3 per cent. inflation, and £117 billion at 4 per cent. inflation. I wondered why the Secretary of State was so excited about that £80 billion of public and private money, given that if he simply maintained for the next 10 years the real value of Conservative spending, he would provide about £25 billion to £30 billion more. In the light of those figures, which were produced by the Library, not by some central office research assistant about which he might harbour certain--unjustified--suspicions, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us why he is robbing the country of between £25 billion and £30 billion of expenditure, both public and private, which would have been made if he had simply followed Conservative plans?
If the Secretary of State followed on from the latest estimate of expenditure in 1998-99, he would spend, in real terms, £98 billion at 2 per cent. inflation, £104 billion at 3 per cent. inflation and £110 billion at 4 per cent. inflation. Not only is the right hon. Gentleman robbing this country of £20 billion to £30 billion of expenditure that was already in place, but he is making a virtue of it. One of the values of a debate such as this is that we can draw attention to the fact that future expenditure is not as impressive as he and his spin doctors would have us believe.
Since franchising started, private rail companies have made about £2 billion of expenditure. We can add that to Railtrack's expenditure plans for the 10 years to which the Secretary of State has referred of £27 billion, assuming 30 per cent. growth. However, according to the chief executive of Railtrack, recently revised figures have increased expectations of growth to 50 per cent.; therefore, planned expenditure increases to £34 billion to £35 billion. Adding channel tunnel expenditure to that results in more than £40 billion of the £80 billion coming from the private sector, over which the Secretary of State exercises no control. I have not added in figures relating to the tube, to design, build, finance and operate road schemes, to ferries and docks or to aviation.
When all those are added in, the Secretary of State is making a song and dance about offering some £20 billion to £25 billion of public expenditure over the next 10 years. Had he followed our plans it would have been about £110 billion; had he followed his own, it would have been slightly more than £100 billion. Alastair Campbell has him dangling on the end of a string for about £25 billion to £30 billion of public expenditure.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) said, even that is not from a solid base, so who knows what the Chancellor will actually give?
Mr. Prescott:
Watch this space.
Sir Brian Mawhinney:
I assure the Secretary of State that if there is one space that we will watch, it is the rather large space that he occupies.
My second point concerns the regulation of aviation and rail transport. Clauses 200 and 201 give powers to the regulators to penalise train operators. There are no similar powers in respect of plane operators. Let me put this case to the Secretary of State. Two business men have businesses that compete for the same customers in Newcastle and want to go to London. They have a genuine choice: they can fly or go by train. Let us assume that the trains and the planes are equally late. The Bill means that the train operator can be fined a considerable sum for poor performance, but the plane operator cannot be similarly penalised.
As the Secretary of State would expect, I took advice about that situation. Fares would rise for the man who took the train because the train company would have to pass the bill on to the customer. I took advice about whether that made the Bill hybrid. I am told that in modern Britain, as we head to the 21st century, the view of hybridity means that it is a trains issue or a planes issue, rather than a transport issue. There cannot be hybridity across different modes of transport, even if the Secretary of State puts them in the same Bill. I have to accept that advice, but I have some other advice. I advise Richard Branson, Michael Bishop, Bob Ayling and the chief executives of all the train operating companies that operate over long distances to seek early legal advice because I think that that aspect of this Bill will wind up in the courts.
My third point is about charging. I asked the Secretary of State what charge would have to be imposed to reduce traffic by 10 per cent. He did not know and nor do the local authorities. Let me tell him something else that he does not know. When I was Secretary of State, I asked a world authority that very question. I was told, "I'll get you an answer for a contract for $150,000, but my strong advice to you is to save your money because no one knows, except that the figure will be so high that it is politically impossible to implement." We must understand that the Bill is not about congestion but taxation. Until the Secretary of State can tell the House how much effect different charges will have in reducing congestion, this will remain a taxation Bill.
The Secretary of State did not tell us how much it will cost to administer the scheme with all its exemptions, such as those for the elderly and the sick, for people on public service, and for doctors and health visitors. How much will it all cost? He does not know, nor do the local authorities. That also shows that the Bill is simply a taxation measure.
I put another question to the right hon. Gentleman. What effect will road charging have on the value of properties on those roads, or the rental value of those properties? The Secretary of State does not know, nor do local authorities.
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