3 Visits and visitors
44. We regard taking evidence on the record in public
as the principal method for carrying out our scrutiny task. Sometimes,
however great value is added by visits to particular places, or
organisations, and we are very grateful to all the people and
organisations who have acted as our hosts. Foreign visits expose
us to the different ways in which countries approach common travel
problems, and mean that we are able to consider government policy
in the light of developments elsewhere. It is important that a
reasonable number of Members participate in our major visits.
In the first place, they involve extremely intensive programmes,
and we need enough people to spread the work load. More importantly,
the true benefits of the visits are the ability to discuss transport
issues freely with experts and politicians from very different
cultures; that experience cannot be replicated by a written note.
We attach the outline programmes for our two major foreign visits
this year, so that readers appreciate the amount of work involved.
We appreciate that in addition to our work on the visit itself,
the FCO goes to great lengths to arrange rewarding programmes;
we are very grateful to them.
45. Visits also have a particular use for this committee;
they expose us to the realities of travel. When we draw international
comparisons, we know what we are talking about. We have seen gridlock
first hand in the USA, and experienced US airport security screening.
Our visit to Korea and Japan allowed us to use Korea's high-speed
trains, Japan's ordinary intercity lines, Seoul's underground
and bus system, and Tokyo's in-car traffic information system.
We were particularly impressed by the quality of the rolling stock
on the Korean and Japanese railways. We are rarely as closely
exposed to the difficulties of travel as we were in January last
year when our flight to the United States was diverted to Iceland
as a precaution because of an unexplained smell of burning. We
were extremely impressed by the way in which safety considerations
overrode the commercial consequences of such a diversion. We were
also very grateful for the assistance the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office gave to the many passengers on that flight. We do not often
get the opportunity to see how organisations respond to crisis
(and we would not relish many such opportunities); it is good
to be able to report that the response was impressive.
46. Not all visits involve the majority of the committee;
for example, we sent a clerk and an adviser to look at the way
in which railways were operated in the Netherlands, and we were
represented at a European Road Safety conference by the Committee
Specialist. Our Chairman and clerks visited the Highways Agency.
These visits tend to be focused on a single issue, where the visit
and report back system works satisfactorily.
47. Visits also give us the opportunity to increase
public awareness of our work. This year, we experimented with
a visit to Shrewsbury and the Marches in connection with the inquiry
into Rural Rail. Rather than holding a series of meetings with
experts and transport providers, we tried to involve the public
in our investigation. Members of community rail groups travelled
with us on rural lines, explaining their particular difficulties.
In addition, we held a public meeting in Shrewsbury and Atcham
Borough Council Chamber, where travellers could give us their
opinion of the local services. Our intention was both to gather
a wider range of views than would be possible in a formal evidence
session, and to make sure that members of the public knew that
we were interested in matters which affected them, and that they
had ready access to us.
48. We were delighted that this visit was the subject
of a radio programme - the MPs Road Show - and that we were accompanied
by a reporter who was able to record our impressions, and those
of the sometimes startled members of the public we met on our
travels. It was also extensively covered in the local press, both
beforehand and afterwards. We are also extremely grateful to all
the local organisations which helped us on this visit, from Shrewsbury
and Atcham Borough Council, which generously rescheduled its meeting
to give us use of the chamber, to the local authority staff, library
staff, and local train groups who distributed the posters advertising
our meeting. Without their help we would not have been able to
hold such a successful meeting.
Table 3: Visits by the Committee, Members and
Staff
| Location
| Purpose of visit
|
| Johnson Matthey Plc, Sonning, Berkshire
December 2003
|
Inquiry into Cars of the Future
|
| USA: Washington DC, Detroit and Sacramento. January 2004
|
Inquiry into Cars of the Future
|
| Transport for London
March 2004
|
Inquiries into Traffic Law and its Enforcement and Cars of the Future
|
| Shrewsbury and the Marches
April 2004
|
Inquiry into Rural Rail
|
Stockholm (Committee Specialist)
May 2004
| Road Safety Conference, relevant to Traffic Law and its Enforcement.
|
| Highways Agency | Inquiry into Traffic Law
|
| South Korea and Japan
October 2004
|
Inquiry into Integrated Transport, Rural Railways
|
| |
Visitors
49. During the year we have been delighted to take part in several
meetings with visitors who have come to look at the United Kingdom's
approach to transport, or to hold discussions on particular matters.
We met two delegations from the committees of Australian state
legislatures. We had most valuable encounters with Madam Anna
Belova, the Deputy Director of the Russian Railways, and with
officials and the Deputy Administrator of the United States Federal
Aviation Administration. Not only is it pleasant to be able to
repay some of the hospitality we receive when we travel, we learn
a great deal from these meetings.
|
