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6.30 pm
Mr. Michael Portillo (Kensington and Chelsea): I must declare an interest as I receive an income from two energy groups.
I listened to the speech by the Secretary of State and found myself moved by his introductory remarks, in which he catalogued the way in which he has, over several decades, taken an interest in transport policy. He is genuinely an idealist, but he must know, when he looks at himself in the mirror, that the Bill bears no relation to his ambitions and will make almost no difference to transport in this country. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) issued a devastating critique of the Bill and described those parts of it that are absolutely irrelevant.
I fear that the Secretary of State and his team have simply parted company with reality. During the past hour and a half, while we have been sitting here in air-conditioned luxury, sprawling on our green Benches with plenty of room about us, the experience of our constituents has been extremely different. They have been making their way home from work in extraordinarily crowded conditions. They have been shoved into trains or they have been sitting in traffic jams. Common sense tells us that transport in this country needs not more reviews, which we heard the hon. Member for West Bromwich,
East (Mr. Snape) call for, or more co-ordination, regulation and interference, as promised in the Bill, but more capacity.
When my right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk was Transport Secretary, he gave us more capacity, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney) when he was in that post. If commuters on their way home this evening hear that the House is debating the first major Transport Bill for many years--a 258-page Bill of 231 clauses and 26 schedules--will they not ask how much new capacity the Bill will provide, how many new railway lines will be built, and how much easier the Bill will make people's journeys? The answer is that it will make no difference to anybody's journey or to transport capacity.
Mr. Gordon Prentice:
How many miles of new railway were constructed during the 18 years of Conservative Government?
Mr. Portillo:
I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman how many miles were constructed, but I can tell him that we constructed the Jubilee line extension, the docklands light railway, the Manchester metrolink, the new tram system in Sheffield and the channel tunnel, and we implemented the electrification of the east coast main line. Those are all Conservative achievements. In the two and a half years during which this Government have been in power, they have not even mentioned the possibility that they might build more railway lines.
In an Opposition day debate about 10 days ago, we demonstrated clearly and conclusively that the amount of investment now going into London Underground is less than it was under the previous Government. My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire pointed out that despite the great hype about investment over the next 10 years, the amount is smaller than that in the investment programme that was bequeathed to the Government.
Over the past two and a half years, we have seen the Secretary of State's transport policy sagging and collapsing like a tired souffle. We have seen him regularly out-manoeuvred by the Treasury. We have seen him denied funds and duped. Quite honestly, I feel sorry for the right hon. Gentleman. The last time that he was here we intimated to him that he was about to lose his job and responsibilities, and he scowled at us--and once he even waved his fist. None the less, there has been a change of ministerial responsibilities since then and certainly a change of rhetoric, if not of policy.
Last week, we saw the insulting sight of the Prime Minister travelling by tube to the dome. Why was that insulting? Because he did it for the television cameras, as a publicity gimmick, which further demonstrated the extent to which the Government are completely out of touch with what their constituents are experiencing.
All that the Bill introduces is a call for co-ordination, integration and regulation. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) loves that stuff. She is much more interested in the extent to which transport is regulated, planned and controlled than in how much transport is provided for people to travel on. It is of no
interest to her that we now have more bus andrail services--something of which the Government themselves boast--because that has not been planned. There was an intimation of what might result from the Bill when the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East said that he looked forward to having a Strategic Rail Authority so that it could plan the seats on trains. Is that really the sort of minimalist intervention that we seek from the Government?
I heard the Transport Minister, Lord Macdonald, on the radio this morning, and it was clear to me that he had effected a major U-turn in his rhetoric. It was, frankly, pathetic and insulting to the intelligence not only of Parliament, but of the people of this country for him to say that he was able to effect that U-turn because he had just discovered that technological changes in the petrol engine would make it possible for us to achieve our environmental target without cutting the amount of traffic. The Government clearly have a dim view of the intelligence of the British people.
I noticed during the course of that interview that Lord Macdonald seemed to be extremely vague about the details of the Bill. That is all that we can expect now that our Transport Minister is in another place. Why should he care what the Commons is doing today? I have not observed anyone from another place here today to see what we are about. Perhaps that vagueness more precisely reflects the fact that Lord Macdonald does know what is of interest to the travelling public--and he knows that the Bill is irrelevant to that, which is why he is apparently ignorant of the Bill's contents.
If I am a member of the Standing Committee that considers the Bill, there is something that I should like to discover from Labour Members. I want to know why they have declared war on poor people who would like to drive. The only means that the Government have of controlling the amount of traffic on our roads is to price people off the roads. From what I know of my constituents, as they go up the income scale, they long to achieve greater mobility by getting four wheels. Buying a battered old Datsun and being able to take the family around when they choose, how they choose and whither they choose, is a great step forward. For our constituents, that is the great achievement of freedom. The Labour party's only answer for controlling traffic is to slap enormous charges on those who want to drive.
We have had an increase in fuel duties. It is no good saying that the fuel duty escalator was invented by the previous Government. Another 12p per litre has been imposed by this Government. Are they going to say that they are absolutely incapable of making any change? That increase was their decision. They have made it difficult for people on low incomes to drive. All hon. Members know that well-off people are completely indifferent to charging, yet the Bill contains proposals to impose more taxes on people who drive. That is yet another example of the way in which the well off will be able to move about at will, while the poor will be denied the opportunity to do so.
Mr. Ian Stewart (Eccles):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Portillo:
No, I am running out of time.
The Bill completely misses its target. We improve transport by providing more capacity. It is possible that some structural changes will increase capacity.
The structural changes that we made to the bus industry through deregulation, and to the railways through privatisation, meant that new operators came forward and new capacity was provided. The Bill appears to move in the other direction. It will move us away from deregulation and privatisation--the policies that have been successful.
Ministers often boast about the fact that we have more than 1,000 new rail services and more than 1,000 new bus services, but do they not understand that those have been created by allowing freedom, but the Bill will move us in the other direction? [Interruption.] It is all very well hon. Members shouting at me, but it was the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East--as a director of a bus company, he has to be in touch with reality--who pointed out that there were more services.
One part of the Bill makes a structural change and can improve capacity: the part that deals with NATS. Of course, if one creates a structure in which more investment can be forthcoming and in which there can be greater innovation and enterprise, it is possible to create new capacity. That is why, in principle, we are in favour of privatisation.
I must echo the words of the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) in the letter that was quoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk a moment ago. This is a thoroughly botched privatisation. What do we mean by that? We mean that the company may be thoroughly confused because it comprises a Government holding and a commercial company's 46 per cent. stake. The commercial company may be British or foreign. If it is foreign, it may not be all that commercial. If it is Thompson CSF, there will be a 40 per cent. French Government stakeholding. What an extraordinary mess to get us into.
The Deputy Prime Minister clearly did not understand the point about the proceeds. The explanatory memorandum makes it absolutely clear that it is anticipated that the proceeds will be £350 million, but that £300 million of that will have to be paid in debt write-off and £35 million in expenses, which will leave only £15 million. The right hon. Gentleman said that the proceeds may not be£350 million. He is absolutely right--they could be great deal less. The proceeds from the sale could be negative.
The other point that the Deputy Prime Minister did not understand was clause 49. I could tell that he did not understand it because when I tried to intervene on him, he ran away in terror. He clearly did not want to discuss the point. He had already said--I hope that Hansard bears me out on this--in reply to a question from my Front-Bench team that, for national security reasons, we needed to be able to repeal the golden share clause in secondary legislation. What an extraordinary thing to say. Why?
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