Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
17 NOVEMBER 2004
RT HON
ALISTAIR DARLING
MP AND MR
DAVID ROWLANDS
Chairman: Is there anyone with interests
to declare?
Clive Efford: Member of the Transport
and General Workers' Union.
Ian Lucas: Member of Amicus.
Miss McIntosh: I did have an interest
in Railtrack, I currently have interests in Eurotunnel, First
Group, the RAC, BA, BAA, BAe and I am doing an IPT placement for
Network Rail.
Chairman: Industry and Parliamentary
Trust. I have only ASLEF.
Mr Donohoe: Special Constable in the
British Transport Police and a member of the Transport and General
Workers' Union.
Mrs Ellman: Member of Transport and General
Workers' Union.
Mr Stringer: Member of Amicus, Director
of Centre for Local Economic Strategies.
Q1 Chairman: Secretary of State, you
are most warmly welcome here this afternoon. We have a lot of
questions for you. I am also sorry to say we are going to have
a lot of interruptions, so if we can restrict—I know you
have a time bar at the end—the suspension of the Committee
for 10 minutes, will that meet with your approval?
Mr Darling: I am more than happy
just to go down, vote and come back up.
Q2 Chairman: Did you have anything you
wanted to say to us in advance? Would you tell us, first, who
you are?
Mr Darling: I am the Secretary
of State for Transport, and have nothing to declare. David Rowlands,
as you know, is the Permanent Secretary. I think, in view of the
fact that we are likely to be heavily interrupted, you should
just press on and anything I have got to say I am sure I will
find a way of saying in reply to your questions.
Q3 Chairman: Secretary of State, the
10 Year Plan was a very much lauded future plan for transport.
Why have you abandoned those ambitious targets for a plan that
is, really, much more general?
Mr Darling: I would not put it
that way. Firstly, the 10 Year Plan was good, primarily because
the then Secretary of State managed to secure a ten-year funding
programme, which was unheard of in transport terms before, and
it compares well with the three-year programme to which other
departments are set. In that 10 Year Plan it set out a number
of things that it hoped it would do. A large number of them, of
course, were indicative rather than a prescriptive list of what
would be done and many of the things set out in the 10 Year Plan
are either being delivered or in the course of construction. Of
course, four years on there are things that have changed. Every
time I come to this Committee I point out that some of the assumptions
made in relation to what could be done and the price at which
they could be done have proved to be rather optimistic, and the
railways is a classic example of that—light rail is another
example. What we have done is to build on the 10 Year Plan. I
would draw the Committee's attention to the fact that in the last
twelve months I have published three White Papers, all of which
are designed to set out the framework for transport in this country
over the next 30 years. There is the aviation one we published
in December of last year, there is the Railway White Paper published
in July and then there is the general White Paper which was published
later in that month. What they do is they set out the direction
of travel—if I can coin that phrase—for the department
and for the Government's policy. They should be read alongside,
of course, other things that we publish which do tend to itemise
particular projects. I think what we have got across the piece,
whether it is aviation, road transport or rail transport, is a
coherent plan that if we stick to it and deliver it will make
a difference in relation to transport.
Q4 Chairman: You have said that your
strategy depends on planning ahead. Are you going to give us specific
plans for schemes that we can expect for the next ten years?
Mr Darling: It depends. Let us
go through these things. If you take aviation, for example, there
we set out the fact that we think that over the next 30 years
we will need additional capacity, in particular we may need four
new runways, two in the South-East, one in the Midlands and one
in Scotland. It is an indicative timetable because there is uncertainty
there in terms of the planning process and when exactly these
things might be required and, of course, there is our obligation
to meet our environmental obligations, particularly at Heathrow.
There is an example where there is a clear direction of travel,
it has been welcomed by the industry and, I think, most people
believe it is a good attempt to strike the right balance between
meeting the anticipated pressures we will face in the future and,
also, accepting the environmental implications of aviation. If
you take the railways, for example, the Railway White Paper majored
on the organisation of the railways, which of course, in my view,
has been one of the major things that have held up the development
of the railways over the last 10 years; the railways has been
through a terrible period, one way or another, and I think we
now have a clear path and a clear organisation that will work.
In terms of railway construction, if you like, the department's
programme is set out not just in the annual report but, also,
in the SRA's report. I should add that next year's departmental
report—or probably the one after—will reflect the
fact that there will not be an SRA so it will have more detail
in relation to the railways there. If we come on to roads where,
by their nature, there are many more construction projects, what
we do not do—and we are not doing in the White Paper—is
listing "This is what we do in year 1, 2, 3 or 4" (or
year 29, I suppose, in the extreme). That is because that information
is available, people can find out what is under construction.
Of course, the very nature of road development means that there
are some things you think you can do at this stage but further
inquiries may complicate that. I think, in relation to transport
across the piece, we have got the money, we are improving the
management of the transport system—which was somewhat neglected
in the past—and I think there is a plan for the future.
The frustrating thing in transport, for all of us, is it takes
a long time to deliver these things, by their very nature.
Chairman: We will try and ask you some
particular questions.
Q5 Mr Donohoe: What would you say is
the main target for the department in connection with the railway
for the future?
Mr Darling: It is improving reliability.
The revised PSA reflects that. If you look at what has happened
on the railways, despite the difficulties, the fact they carried
a billion passengers last year, which is the highest total since
the early 1960s, shows that people want to travel by train, and
the new rolling stock and so on that has been introduced has made
a big difference. The thing that is holding back the railways
at the moment is reliability. If you want people to use the railways,
as opposed to using their car, you have got to be able to tell
them that if they come to the station the train will be there
and it will get to its destination at the time it is supposed
to get there. When I look at the figures, the reliability is improving
all the time but, let us face it, we still have a long way to
go. The present overall rate of reliability, although it is up
on last year, is not as good as it should be. That is why, for
this three-year period that we fix these PSA targets, I was quite
deliberate in saying "I want to concentrate on reliability",
because if you sort reliability a number of the other things you
want to come alongside that, like increased usage, will follow
from that.
Q6 Mr Donohoe: In addition to that, is
it not the case that you would also like, when you are reorganising
the franchises, to have built into that that people should not
stand on trains for any length of time? The new Scotrail franchisee
has actually made it as part of the promise that they will not
have any passengers stand for more than ten minutes on any train.
Why do you not build that into every single one of the franchises?
Mr Darling: It would depend if
it was a practical proposition. Let us be blunt about it: if you
compare Scot Rail to some of the train operating companies coming
into the London stations you are dealing with a different order
of magnitude of pressure. Scot Rail themselves will accept there
will be some standing as you come into Glasgow and Edinburgh,
in particular, because those are the two pressure points. What
we have done is to improve not just the quality but the quantity
of rolling stock—
Q7 Chairman: The quality of standing
space?
Mr Darling: No, the quality of
the rolling stock, Mrs Dunwoody, which I hope will make conditions
better for passengers. Obviously, we would like to reduce the
time that people have to stand, although certainly I think if
you ask passengers what they want, yes, they want a comfortable
ride but the key thing they want is reliability, which is why
I am concentrating on that. Of course, the other things come alongside
that and you want to make the journey as enjoyable as commuting
ever can be. You want to make sure the trains are clean, and other
things as well.
Q8 Chairman: Secretary of State, if I
am rough with my lot about the questions I think I am going to
ask you to give a little less in reply.
Mr Darling: I will be monosyllabic.
Chairman: Not quite, but somewhere in
between.
Q9 Mr Donohoe: Can I take you to another
question, Secretary of State, in connection with the staffing
of the department itself. Eighty per cent of your staff at present
are employed outside London. Under the Lyons Review what additional
jobs are you proposing to transfer outside London?
Mr Darling: We have plans for
60, I think—and David may want to say something more about
that. A lot of our redeployment took place over the last two or
three years, and we will continue to do that. I will give you
one example: many of the staff at the new Rail Accident Investigation
Branch, for example, will be in Derby; they do not need to be
in London. We do need some in the South East but they will be
in Derby. We have moved more staff down to Hastings which, although
it is in the South East, is an area which does need help, and
also we have proposals to reduce the head count of the department
further.
Mr Rowlands: Two things, if I
may: I talked to Michael Lyons about, basically, three blocks
of staff we have got in London and the South East: people in Great
Minister House, basically, in Central London, a block of staff
in Hastings and we have a block of staff in the MCA headquarters
in Southampton, and little bits and pieces in VROs and HGV testing
stations. It was commonly agreed that we would not move staff
out of Hastings because it is a depressed area, albeit in the
South East, and we would not move staff out of Southampton because
that part of Southampton is one of the 88 Neighbourhood Renewal
areas. So it is really just about the staff at headquarters level.
We have made sure—
Q10 Chairman: What total is that?
Mr Rowlands: At headquarters level,
leaving aside headquarters staff not in Central London, we are
talking about, in round figures, 1,300 to 1,400 staff.
Mr Darling: That is in Great Minister,
in Central London.
Mr Rowlands: Yes.
Q11 Mr Donohoe: Where do you think you
would disperse these jobs? Is it possible you would even come
north of the Border?
Mr Rowlands: I think that is unlikely,
I have to say.
Q12 Chairman: You would be in very good
touch with the Scottish Parliament, if not with us.
Mr Rowlands: Beyond the relatively
small number you have identified, it is more likely that you are
looking at our shared services, which we want to build up, I think,
but it may produce some more jobs in Wales. That is not a promise
because there is a big site, as you know, at Swansea and space
there.
Q13 Miss McIntosh: Secretary of State,
at the same time that you cut freight transport facility grants
you have actually spent £1.3 million on consultants for the
Rail Review. Do you think that was a good use of taxpayers' money?
Mr Darling: In relation to the
freight facilities grants, what we did was continued with them
but we said we were not taking new applications. In the summer
in the White Paper we said we wanted to move to a more generalised
approach to freight, if you like; one that looked across all modes
of travel. I have an aversion to employing consultants if I can
possibly avoid it.
Q14 Chairman: That makes you very unusual
in this Cabinet, Secretary of State.
Mr Darling: I think government
is not in the business of providing a livelihood for consultants.
However, I do accept that there are some things on which we do
not have in-house expertise and we need to get help from outside
from time to time, and I would not want to boost the figures we
have just been talking about on a permanent basis. Yes, it was
necessary to employ them because undoing the mess of privatisation
has taken some doing. You will be pleased to hear, Miss McIntosh,
we are well on the way to doing it.
Q15 Miss McIntosh: That is a debatable
point that we will have to save for another occasion. The new
rail target set out in the Spending Review aims for further improvements
in punctuality and reliability by 2008. How can you deem that
to be a meaningful and reliable figure when we see that rail companies
simply are amending the timetable as they go along?
Mr Darling: No, they are not doing
that. There are times when there are derogations from timetable,
like there has been for some time in relation to the autumn, when
we have got the leaf fall, and the rest of it. We have not changed
that. What I would like to do and what I think we will do over
the next few months is, in addition to the PPM target which we
publish, give the public just a little bit more information. What
is interesting is that if you take some trains on the East Coast,
for example, an awful lot of trains are arriving at time and one
or two early, but the whole figure is dragged down because there
is a tail of ones that can be quite badly delayed. I think, frankly,
the more information we give the public as to what is actually
happening with these train companies, firstly, they can see what
is going on and, secondly, it does bring pressure on some of these
train companies to sort out the problems. For example, there are
too many delays being caused by trains not leaving the depot in
the morning on time and that can have a knock-on effect. Incidentally,
setting up the joint control centres, again, is something that
was disrupted at privatisation. We have set them up for most other
routes and that has resulted in a huge increase in reliability,
and that is something that we are pressing ahead with.
Q16 Miss McIntosh: If you accept that
rail freight is in something of a crisis—
Mr Darling: I do not accept that
for one minute.
The Committee suspended from 2.44 pm to
2.51 pm for a division in the House
Q17 Miss McIntosh: What are you expecting
the £22 million Strategic Rail Authority freight road-to-rail
money to achieve?
Mr Darling: I contradicted you
a few moments ago but I now just happen to be looking at the figures
here which show that the freight moved last year was 18.9 billion
tonnes per kilometre and for the previous year it was 18.7. It
is interesting that even though the grants have been closed to
new applicants, the amount of freight moved went up. If you look
at the first quarter of this financial year, there is an increase
of 8.1% on the quarter a year ago, so what it shows is that freight
is continuing to be moved and an increased amount of freight has
been moved. The point of the grants is that I think we recognise
that there are areas where maybe pump priming can make a difference.
What I do not want to happen is for the industry to come to rely
on Government grants to make things happen. I am encouraged by
the fact that, in the last year, while there have been disappointments,
if you take the Royal Mail being carried, what is interesting
is that, a few months later, the Royal Mail reconsidered their
position and there is now Royal Mail being carried back on the
railways again. I also think that, if you look at the people now
in charge of some of these freight companies, they are very aggressive
and very imaginative about getting new business and that is precisely
how it ought to be. I know the point you are trying to make, Miss
McIntosh, but I think there are a number of reasons for optimism
in the freight industry. There will be setbacks from time to time
but I think there are reasons for optimism and that is one of
them.
Q18 Miss McIntosh: Your own Department's
annual report shows the level moved was down at the end of 2003
from the previous year and paragraph 4.1 states that the reason
for this was reflecting fluctuations in the demand for coal which
was just a one-off because it does coincide with the freight facilities
grant and the track access grant having been suspended from January
2003.
Mr Darling: I just quoted you
figures showing that there has been an increase in freight carried.
Of course from to time, there will be variations. For example,
coal and steel for a long time were the staple diet, if you like,
in the industry and changes will take place from time to time
and what we say in the annual report is that, in that particular
year, there was a variation because of the amount of coal carried.
If you look to the future, it is undoubtedly the case that there
will be further changes. What we should be looking at is this
industry getting into new markets, shifting stuff that it has
not traditionally done before.
Q19 Chairman: It will be spaced, it will
be train paths, it will be ability to aggressively attack those
markets.
Mr Darling: Absolutely.
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