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David Hamilton (Midlothian): The Liberal spokesman said four times that bus numbers have not increased outside London, but there has been a 10 per cent. increase in Edinburgh. I agree with him, however, that re-regulation is required for rural areas. That is a major problem for Labour-controlled, as well as Conservative, areas.
Mr. Darling: In relation to rural buses serving small towns and villages, of which there are many in my hon. Friend's constituency, in some cases scheduled bus services can provide a good service. There are several examples of that, although probably not that many in Midlothian, where there are very small communities and putting on an extra service of two or three buses a day is not the answer. That is why I would like more dedicated demand buses that people can phone up for. Those services can make a big difference. I saw one in Cornwall at the end of last year, and it was a far more realistic option. Many hon. Friends have told me that there are too many instances of buses carting fresh air around the country, and it would be better to spend that money more effectively.
Norman Lamb (North Norfolk): I was hoping to say something a little later about dial-a-ride services. One of the problems that is being faced across the country is that those schemes are reaching the end of their three-year period of funding from the Countryside Agency and cannot get any further funding. The Countryside Agency will fund only new, innovative schemes, not the existing schemes that are working. Can the Secretary of the State address that problem?
Mr. Darling: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. There have been many examples of pump priming, whereby money goes in to run a service for, say, three years. In most cases, the only way in which to ensure that such services last in the long term is if the local authority is willing to take them on and fund them properly. That is a far better option. We shall want to keep the situation under review.
Lembit Öpik: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Darling: I intended not quite to insult the hon. Gentleman, but to take up something that he said, towards the end of my speech. He can intervene then.
Having talked about money and investment, I want to mention an important point about the management of the system. I have said many times that we need both money and management. On the railways, although performance is improving it needs to improve much
more. It is interesting that the performance of franchises in some parts of the country is up, at more than 90 per cent., yet others—such as the Virgin cross-country services—are down at about 67 per cent. That is why, as I said the other day—I make no bones about it—the Strategic Rail Authority was right to take decisions that resulted in a comparatively small number of services being taken out. It is early days yet, but reliability is increasing. Even after taking those services out, there are more cross-country services every day than there were a year ago.I should mention road management, as I issued a written statement on that on Friday. The Highways Agency is changing its role to provide far better day-to-day management of the motorway system, with 24-hour motorway patrols. That is an example of how we can better manage matters and get more capacity from what we have.
I want to say a few words about airports. Again, the Liberals' position is full of contradictions. As I understand it, they are against any more expansion of airports anywhere and want to put up fares. Yet when it comes to their own local airports—the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) has been trying to leap to his feet—it is a different kettle of fish altogether. That shows that if a party aspires to government—no wonder the hon. Gentleman's leader walked out, his head hung in shame—it is necessary to have a consistency of approach nationally, as well as locally.
Lembit Öpik: My moment of glory has come. I am sure that the Secretary of State will be familiar with the consistency with which Liberal Democrats have argued the case for regional transport. In a place like Wales, aviation is absolutely vital. Surely he can confirm—just as the presumed Secretary of State for Wales agrees with my comments about the need for a hub-and-spoke approach to a regional air network for Wales—that that requires serious funding as well as strategic support from the Government.
Mr. Darling: I thought that the hon. Gentleman was referring to Welshpool, and I was wondering what hub-and-spoke operation he proposes to build there. I am quite clear that air transport is an integral part of our transport system. Last year, half the population flew at least once. Low-cost airlines have grown from about 7 million to 34 million passengers. Of course, we have to plan ahead for the next 20 or 30 years. The hon. Gentleman is right at least to this extent: we have to plan in a way that is consistent with our environmental obligations. The point that I was making is that whatever policy a party has, it is a good idea if it is the same nationally as it is locally. One cannot have a national policy against air travel and a local policy of building an airport wherever possible.
Mr. John Barrett (Edinburgh, West): rose—
Mr. Darling: I have given way to the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire. I am conscious of the fact that it is his party's Supply day, however, and I shall out of
courtesy give way to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett).
John Barrett (Edinburgh, West): The right hon. Gentleman is thinking about the long-term future—20 or 30 years ahead—and the air transportation consultation document is coming to its conclusion soon. However, rail substitution is important. Is he concerned about the proposed scaling down of the Waverley station development in his constituency?
Mr. Darling: It is common ground that Waverley station needs to be improved. There is a slight complication, because in March the Scottish Executive announced plans for a major rail interchange at Edinburgh airport. If that were to be built, it would have implications for the scale of what is necessary at Waverley. The other factor is that the costs at Waverley must be manageable. I saw a report in today's edition of The Herald that quoted absolutely astronomical costs—twice the cost of building the Scottish Parliament, which is saying something. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor would say, we need to have a prudent look at what is required. The hon. Gentleman can rest assured that since Waverley is, at least for the time being, in my constituency, I take a keen interest in it.
On rail substitution, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I mentioned the west coast main line. When that is completed, it will be possible to travel by train from Manchester to London in about two hours. That is a much more attractive deal than going out to Manchester airport, flying down to Heathrow, then coming into London. The Glasgow journey will be about four and a quarter hours. The Edinburgh journey, once two or three big improvements have been done, will be very competitive, in time terms, with what is currently on offer. Both Virgin and GNER are offering attractive deals: we want to encourage that.
Even having done all that, there comes a point where it is still necessary to plan for the future. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) is sadly no longer with us, having asked the question that was required of her, which was about substitution. She will know that many of her constituents travel a wee bit further afield than Manchester and Edinburgh. When the hon. Member for Bath agreed with her proposition that we should have rail alternatives, I was intrigued as to which Liberal trains would run to New York or Singapore. Perhaps we would have the 8.22 to Auckland. The hon. Gentleman is certainly an ambitious politician: his transport policy knows no bounds.
Investment in transport has doubled since the last Tory Government, even after inflation, and railway investment is trebling. We are managing the railway network far more effectively than we have done in the past, although we clearly have a lot more to do. We are building additional capacity where it is needed, and the £180 billion over a 10-year period will make a significant difference. We are also planning for what is needed in the decades to come, although that is probably a matter for another debate. The Liberal motion has no merit whatsoever. It is opportunistic and full of political humbug, and it deserves to be thrown out.
8.29 pm
Mr. Tim Collins (Westmorland and Lonsdale): Let me begin by complimenting the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) on the clarity, simplicity, brevity and common sense of his motion. I fear that I cannot attach quite such complimentary terms to every aspect of his speech, but I shall certainly invite my colleagues to support his motion in the Division Lobby later tonight. His observation that the creation of Network Rail was Liberal Democrat policy was interesting—as was his criticism of the Government for not having created it earlier—given that Network Rail is currently £12 billion over budget for the period up to 2006. Presumably he thinks that we should have created it earlier and gone even more over budget. We shall see. I was able to agree with some of the things that he said, and I shall return to them later.
First, I want to consider the speech that the Secretary of State has just made. He said three things that exhibited robust common sense, if I may say so. First, I totally agree that it is wrong to pretend that there was a golden age for buses prior to deregulation. I also agree that it makes no sense for any of us to campaign, either locally or nationally, for buses to go on "carting fresh air around the country", as he put it. He was also right to pay tribute to the success of the dial-a-ride schemes, and to say that they must play an important part in future transport strategy.
The second aspect of his speech that I thought entirely fair and which showed robust common sense was his reference to the fact that the difficulties that the nation's transport is facing clearly did not begin when he became Transport Secretary last year, or when this Government took office in 1997. We are dealing with problems that were built up over many decades and which will no doubt take a considerable number of years to solve. I am not sure that he is right to say that the Liberals were blaming these problems on Gladstone. If my history is right, and they were saying that the problems started at the turn of the last century, they were probably blaming Messrs Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith. Either way, we are talking about fairly long-term damage.
The third thing that the Secretary of State said with which I am happy to agree was that we need to consider, on a non-partisan basis, why it takes so long for any major transport project to be brought to fruition in this country. It is notable that things take a great deal longer here than in many other European countries. The Secretary of State correctly identified a number of the factors that lie behind that, but it is none the less a serious problem for the long-term business competitiveness of our nation, and we need to think seriously about how to address it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) pointed out earlier that there was a contrast between some public sector projects and private sector projects. He said that supermarkets were often put up in six months or so but, of course, transport projects are often rather larger than that. None the less, there are perhaps lessons to be learned from how both overseas companies and British companies are able to proceed more swiftly elsewhere than is sometimes the case in the UK.
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