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The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr. Tony McNulty): My contribution will be in the same vein, in the sense that this is the first time we have introduced the notion of London's role in the new rail structure. My comments will go ever so slightly further than the amendment, with your permission, Mr. Amess.
I would like to welcome everyone back and say happy new year to those who were not here this morning, which clearly includes Plaid Cymru again. I hope that we have that nice blend that we had this morning—I fear we shall not—of alacrity and scrutiny. Things should be scrutinised well, but with a degree of alacrity. That is not a dig at the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire)—the matters are important, and this is the first real opportunity we have had to debate them in any substantial way. I was going to use the phrase of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) about intellectual rigour, in the sense that on Second Reading we certainly did not have a real in-depth discussion of the London aspects of the Bill with any degree of rigour, intellectual or otherwise. For those who do not know, I remind the Committee that the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster prays in aid the hon. Member for South Suffolk, which is Suffolk in East Anglia, not Southwark as in south London. He is not trying to pass off the hon. Gentleman as a London Member. The comments made by the shadow spokesperson on Second Reading were, as I said at length back then, quite fatuous, showing a complete lack of regard for and experience of London and its rail network, where we start from with transport in London—the Greater London Authority Act 1999—and the fact that heavy rail was not part of that Act.
I entirely and readily accept the honesty and sincerity of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Spelthorne, including his honesty in saying, ''Hands off my railways, whether you are Conservative, Tory, Labour or anything else.'' Conservative and Tory are the same thing, I know that.
Mr. Wilshire: Are they?
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Mr. McNulty: Well, they are not actually, if the hon. Gentleman wants to go into a history lesson about it, but we will pass over that. I am not going to go into Tory Ireland and vagabonds, thieves and scavengers as the root of ''Tory'', so we will pass over that.
The hon. Gentleman's point has a particular Spelthorne dimension. He is profoundly wrong, but I accept the sincerity from where he starts. In a legislative context, we start by enabling and no more at this stage. There is still a lot of thought, reflection and work to be done. There is a clear gap in the Mayor's and Transport for London's powers to be filled by heavy rail. I am not surreptitiously attacking the 1999 Act. I had the great privilege of spending about three months of my early parliamentary life on it. It was enormous fun and a wonderful introduction to all things parliamentary, including the parliamentary ''Call My Bluff'' word-game process we go through with legislative scrutiny in Committee. It was right and proper at that time not to throw heavy rail into the mix that finally emerged as the democratic settlement for London, partly for the many reasons that hon. Members have outlined.
The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster is right: some 70 per cent. of rail journeys start or finish in London. So, if we accept the notion momentarily for the purpose of debate that the heavy rail network is an important dimension to Londoners as well as the wider London and south-east commuter network, how do we get to the stage where Transport for London has a greater say and a clearer role in heavy rail? It is essential to achieving a greater level of transport integration in London. How do we fit that in with the notion that the London and south-east commuter network should not conveniently stop at particular boundaries, which is the reason why I object to the amendments?
We deliberately said to TFL in the July White Paper that the process will need to be ongoing and evolving. The Bill deliberately does not say in enormous detail how TFL will have a role in the London and south-east commuter network. It does not, again quite deliberately, define boundaries, so I understand the comments that, if we blink, TFL will somehow become responsible for the Oldham loop and all rail services throughout the west midlands. It is not true, but I understand how people start from that perspective. We have captured the process in legislation by defining the services in which TFL can and cannot be involved.
If one pursued the journey—no pun intended—in the direction that the hon. Member for Spelthorne hinted, one obvious place to start would be effectively to reinvent Network SouthEast. It has some logic, capturing some—not all—of the commuter traffic in and out of London.
On the question of giving TFL a greater role because we think it needs it to integrate public transport all the more readily in a London context, is re-establishing Network SouthEast the answer? Clearly from our perspective it is not. Whatever influence the Mayor may or may not have over South Eastern Trains, South West Trains, Southern Trains and some of the
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other commuter services around London, there is probably an imbalance. That is not a direction in which we seek to go.
The London Transport Users Committee has some weird boundaries that go far beyond even the suggestions offered by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster. They are really quite skewed and go all the way up to Bedford in one direction, Bicester in another, and to the south encompass Gatwick airport. Of course the lovely Spelthorne is entirely within the LTUC boundaries, given that it is adjacent to London. That is another obvious place to start. Again we need to look at that and reflect on it.
The hon. Member for Spelthorne was broadly right. Are there discrete services within London? Clearly there are, but not many in terms of heavy rail. Most of them stop outside the GLA boundaries. About the closest we get to an almost discrete commuter service in London—our discussions with the Mayor will consider this—are the various Siverlink services, most of which are in London, save for three to five miles through my constituency up to Watford Junction. All but that last little bit is within the GLA area. We have just renewed the franchise on that for two years. During those two years we will look at how that might be the template for TFL's future role.
I will happily provide the maps that TFL gave me of the area it is thinking about if we go in this direction. Yes, it still includes Spelthorne, but it is much narrower than the LTUC boundaries. At various stages it is either contiguous with or close to contiguous with the GLA boundaries. It has a red line around London. In its northern extremities it probably comes just north of Welwyn. It would include St. Albans, Watford, Croxley Green and Amersham. Much of the transport provided in the constituency of the hon. Member for Epping Forest is London-based. Perhaps we should look for more money from her for Epping station and the bits of the Central line that go out there. I do not know whether there is more than one station in her constituency, if indeed Epping station is within it. I do not know the geography sufficiently well.
We have these untidy boundaries. We rightly start from the premise that some five or six years on from TFL and the GLA coming into existence, to get to where we want to get to in terms of a fully integrated public transport system in London it is worth at the very least looking at heavy rail with all the difficulties of those commuter lines going in and out of London. I am closer to being persuaded on the TFL boundaries—what they call the minimal operational London region inner suburban—than by anything else.
To suggest the M25 is, with the greatest respect, nonsense. It is as arbitrary as any line one can draw. It was not drawn with any notion of administrative or
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political convenience in any way. If one looks in detail at a map it does not work with the commuter services in any sort of way. We could take an arbitrary route, which, given all the confusions and complexities that we already have in London to reflect where the PTEs are at present, which is 25 miles beyond the borders. That also draws a strange map round London in how it dovetails with commuter-land.
I emphasise that this is a matter for subsequent debate. Even if the Bill secures Royal Assent, we are not handing over as a land grab—or whatever else it may be called—that map, any of the suggestions of the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster or any other variation, such as the map going to, in extremis, the east coast main line, the west coast main line, et al, simply because they start in London. With the exception of some details that I want to come on to, the Bill is about enabling that process at least to start. We start from the premise that it is worth reflecting on that gap in terms of a heavy rail responsibility for Transport for London.
Mr. Knight: First, the Minister referred to the maps that Transport for London supplied him with and said that he would let the Committee see them. Presumably he also received some correspondence or briefing from Transport for London with the map. Is he willing to share that with us as well before Report so that we can see whether some of the fears of my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne are misplaced or whether he has some basis for expressing those concerns?
Secondly, the Minister referred to the clause as being enabling. When the Government have formed a view about what they are prepared to enable, what consultation does the Minister envisage taking place with Members of Parliament, either collectively or involving those Members who represent the seats affected?
Mr. McNulty: TFL might have sought to brief me, but I do not get briefed by outside third parties. There have been discussions with TFL on the issue, as there have been with the Scottish Executive, the National Assembly for Wales and a range of other interested parties. So, from my perspective, there is no corresponding correspondence—if that is not a tautology—but submissions have been made by TFL to the Department in this context. If they are in the public domain, I will happily provide the Committee with them. I suspect that, whether they are in the public domain or not, they are FOI-ed, if I can coin a new verb. So, if I can provide those submissions, I will.
On the second point, whichever direction we go in will ultimately be the subject of a memorandum of understanding between TFL and the Government. Before we get to that stage, which is some way off—perhaps notwithstanding the example that I gave of the Silverlink services, which may come on stream before that—there will be extensive consultation with all interested parties. If I have anything to do with it, that consultation will include MPs, both those affected and more generally because, after all, the issue is the use of London's rail network. Even though it is in the main about parts of the commuter network of London
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and the south-east, that impacts, as hon. Members have suggested, on the wider efficacy and efficiency of the London and south-east transport system and, by definition, many of the other lines coming into and out of London that are not defined as simply being commuter services. So, I will try to make sure that consultation with MPs, as well as with everyone else, is as wide as possible.
That is the end game—a memorandum of understanding between TFL and the Government about the direction in which they can go. So, what does the clause do at this stage? It defines what the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster sought to redefine—what London means in this case. It means that TFL will be able to buy additional services, invest in stations, provide bus substitution services, which it does already, and be consulted more readily on franchises in the area that we determine. That is important because that is all it does for now. I emphasise that, having considered and consulted on the issue, the end game is how to plug a gap in terms of integrated transport, in that TFL has total control of buses, the tube and everything else inside London, as well as wider traffic management duties, but it does not have any significant input into commuter services that clearly have an impact on London.
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In all honesty, therefore, it is not a land grab. I carefully followed some of the arguments of the hon. Member for Spelthorne. He might not like it, but it would be entirely appropriate for TFL to say to him, ''Actually, air track's nothing to do with us, guv, and we're not terribly interested in it.'' In the wider context, should the transport authority for London be interested in how the airports in London and the south-east are linked together and whether they are linked with public transport? Of course it should, but while it would have some interest in a link from somewhere outside London to Heathrow, it would not have a direct responsibility or interest, and neither should it.
The Gatwick Express has been a relative success. We are working on a case-by-case basis to develop a route utilisation strategy that will optimise the existing capacity of each of the lines. It is true that usage on the Brighton commuter line has increased by some 70-plus per cent. over the past three or four years. How that interleaves with the Gatwick Express in a limited capacity must be worth considering. I do not yet know how that will be addressed by the utilisation strategy, but it should at least be considered in some detail.
So, with the best will in the world, we cannot accept a restriction to ''services within Greater London'' or
''within Greater London and an area no further than five miles from the border with Greater London'',
or any arbitrary cut-off point, because that will not configure nicely and neatly with some of the commuter lines. The same applies to the M25 and the other matters in the amendments.
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Where does that leave us? It leaves TFL moving in the direction of defining the London railway passenger service in the context of what I have suggested: buying more services, investing in stations, providing bus substitution and being consulted on franchise. It does not and will not mean TFL, Bob Kiley, Ken Livingstone or anyone else taking over the Metrolink in Manchester, but it does mean the beginning of a process that I entirely concede the hon. Member for Spelthorne does not want to start at all—considering in detail at how heavy rail can be factored into what TFL does for London's transport.
Nobody can consider that matter with any seriousness without bumping into the very inconvenient but factual notion that commuter services in London go beyond GLA boundaries. How can we come up with a compromise between the obvious notion of TFL having control or influence over matters outside the GLA boundary, the democratic deficit, which we will come on to, and how those who use the services from outside London can provide input? That subject arises very quickly if one begins with the premise that TFL having a greater role in heavy rail is a good starting point for London and the commuters of the south-east.
In the smaller context of the amendments, we do not accept the proposed boundary changes. I urge colleagues to go back to the discussion in the White Paper about how TFL's role fits into the broader context. A working group has already been established in the Department. It includes the Strategic Rail Authority, the train operating companies and TFL, and considers where we go next with such discussions.
I emphasise that no final decisions have been taken on the scope of the Mayor's responsibilities. It is still early days on that, but the London working group is considering the next phase and matters such as rationalising fare structures and ticketing technology, travelcard fares going further, the greater role of discrete services in London, the ability to buy additional services, the possibility of specifying service levels directly and, importantly, taking revenue risks on services within the GLA's boundaries. The discussion is about TFL's role within the GLA boundary and discrete services there, and a potential role on the rail network in an area slightly larger than the GLA area; it must be slightly larger, because of the accidents of history and settlements that have prevailed around London in years past. Before the hon. Member for Spelthorne rushes to speak, let me say that I am not describing Spelthorne or Staines, God forbid, as an accident of history. It is just that the way in which things have developed around London has not been entirely convenient for the bureaucrats, politicians and planners.
Our underlying emphasis—I thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Amess—is TFL. In the interests of Londoners and those beyond London's boundaries in terms of commuter services—services not just for commuters—we need to start to look at how to integrate heavy rail within all the other public transport on offer in the GLA area. That necessarily leads to the next point about the GLA boundaries. In
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that context, I ask the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster, who is, of course, half a Middlesex Member himself, to seek leave to withdraw his amendment.
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