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John Thurso: I would never for a moment think that the Minister was capable of making any cheap point, but he might be guilty of presenting us with an actual red herring this time. Schedule 1 makes the arrangements for the transfer of powers to the relative bodies. Simply deleting the closure clauses therefore means that schedule 1 takes effect and those powers go to their recipient, as set out in that schedule.
Mr. McNulty: That would be a useful, fundamental and telling point if it were not for the inconvenient existence of schedule 13. Due to part 4 and schedule 7, schedule 13 gets rid of and repeals much of the closure process already in place and the powers that lie therein for the SRA and the RPCs.
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The provision does not impact on the enhancements that are sought, whether for Beverley to York or Brockenhurst to wherever, but several points have been made that warrant some response. I shall certainly take back the issue about Soundings, or the development of some other appropriate vehicle for reaching the widest possible group of disabled users of the railways. I am assured that that can be done either by elaboration in the guidance or by designating disabled groups as an interested party in accordance with schedule 1. That is an entirely fair point, and it goes above and beyond simply issuing newspaper adverts.
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Mr. Knight: I am grateful to the Minister for responding positively on this particular point. Would he give an undertaking that he will let members of the Committee know his conclusion in good time to allow an amendment to be tabled on Report if he decides not to do anything? I think that he has accepted the point that disabled people need to be kept informed and to be kept in this particular loop.
Mr. McNulty: Inasmuch as I can, of course I give such an undertaking. I do too, as the guidance is fairly central to all this, on the entirely fair, wider point. There was, by the by, at least a page of a guide to the guidance in the very earliest documentation that I gave the Committee, although it by no means covers all the criteria.
The plan is to make sure that consultation takes place on that guidance before commencement in the summer. It should not be beyond the wit of officials to get to a stage, at the very least, where people can have sight of that, hopefully before Report, but certainly during our parliamentary process. I will do all that I can to hasten that process, so that people can see the guidance in a bit more detail than the simple one page that was part of the document that I gave to the Committee in the first instance.
Mr. Chope: I am grateful to the Minister for responding to my concerns, but he is still a bit vague. We are told that the Report stage is planned for a fortnight today. Having that in mind, would it be possible to produce the draft guidance or draft criteria before then, and if not, why not?
Mr. Knight: Two days before.
Mr. Chope: Two days before, so that we could suggest amendments.
Mr. McNulty: I have said as much as I can. With the best will in the world, we cannot amend guidance. We cannot amend guidance on Report on the Floor of the House or anywhere else, and the hon. Gentleman has been around this place long enough, albeit on and off, to understand that. However, there will be significant consultation. I understand that that will guide or impact on Members' contributions to any debate that we have on Report. As I said, and rather as I promised
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on Tuesday on the PTEs guidance, we will try to see if we can at the very least have a sort of high-level framework of what that guidance might look like.
The other assurance that I can give is that there will be substantive consultation on that guidance, with all those involved or likely to be involved. If I can in any way, shape or form get at least a first draft of what that guidance might look like to the Committee in sufficient time to do something with it before Report—I take the hon. Gentleman's point—I shall. None the less, I shall try and make sure that that is available in some form in sufficient time for there still to be a chance, if not for our Chamber, then for another Chamber, to look at and take note of what is in there. I can say no more than that.
This is not about a secret agenda. It is not about closures. It is not about me or any successor of mine being the new manifestation of the Conservative Dr. Beeching. It is about putting in place as robust a process for network modification as we possibly can, not least because of the demise of the SRA and the old RPCs. I cheerfully apologise for taking 22 clauses to do that, but we start from an extremely complex body of legislation. We sought, at least in part, to detract from rather than add to that complexity by bringing things forward in the way that we have done.
Let me touch on some of the points of substance that were made by colleagues. I take the point of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross that the problem with Beeching was the attempt to make cost savings by using an average approach. I have examined the detail of what Beeching did, and it was quite phenomenal. If one looks at a pre-Beeching and post-Beeching map of the rail network, there was a hugely significant change. It got rid of about a third of railway mileage in the entire country. All the huge gaps that can now be seen in the network date back to that stage. I have not worked out the exact details, but it is fair to say that since 1963—the best part of a 40-year period—there has been nothing like the number of closures carried out by Beeching. Those closures were hugely significant.
I am not about to become Dr. Beeching 2, but such matters must be considered in detail. The new procedures will require a detailed assessment of the effects of closures on passengers, operating costs and revenues, which will be spelt out firmly in the guidance. Combined with the process that we put in place, that will mean that the stroke-of-a-pen approach based on the dodgy numbers utilised by Beeching cannot be repeated. If I were being less than generous, I would say that it could be repeated should the amendment to get rid of clauses 22 to 44 be accepted. Then we might be in a world where a Minister with responsibility for transport could eradicate almost a third of our railway lines at the stroke of a pen. The point about the average approach and the numbers used by Beeching is a fair one; that will not be replicated in the process.
It has been a while since it has been mentioned, so I shall talk in passing about the concept of undue specificity. It is far more appropriate that the broader criteria we want to introduce in the process are not in the Bill because of undue specificity. We want to
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introduce more criteria than simply passenger hardship, which, however defined, is a fairly narrow criterion. Passenger hardship will not necessarily sit well with cost benefits, economic benefits and the social and economic substantiation for the existence of a line, not to mention the fair points about freight made by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire.
However intellectually rigorous parliamentary counsel are, and however erudite they are in their intellectual acrobatics, people should eschew the notion of definitive, universal listings in a Bill, because that is exactly what they are, and beyond such listings one cannot go, so the flexibility necessary to take on board all the elements—each application—on their own terms and in their own circumstances is lost if ultra-rigid criteria are included in the Bill.
Mr. Chope: Will the Minister accept that the clear implication of what he has said is that the proposals in the Bill will therefore create passenger hardship, which would not be created if these criteria were not amended?
Mr. McNulty: In a word, no. I would not accept that at all. I have said clearly that, however defined, passenger hardship in itself is a narrow criterion. If we want as fair and elaborate a series of criteria in guidance as possible, which go beyond a narrow definition in the Bill, that would be too exact. We want a far more efficient and fair procedure than one based on narrow criteria, however defined. It does not follow that I am saying that passenger hardship does not matter—far from it—but there is a whole range of criteria beyond that that needs to be substantially considered.
I do not think that a set of procedures that includes a 12-week consultation period and a detailed assessment of all the effects could be described in any way, shape or form as speeding up closures. It is about putting in place a process of network modification that is as fair as it possibly can be to all concerned, especially the notion that we will consult widely on the guidance.
The points of the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire on freight are entirely fair, but part 4 applies to the closing of passenger services only, not freight services. If the line is already used for freight, that will be picked up in the assessment carried out under the closure guidance and the line will remain open. That is also why the focus is on services on the lines rather than the lines themselves. As I understand it, and unless someone tells me otherwise, that is what will prevail.
I get the odd notion or two—not terribly many—about what to do with lines that no longer have services on them. Proposals have been made in some instances, although I cannot remember the exact cases. As the right hon. Gentleman infers, it is clear that there may be another role for the line at some time down the road—if that is not mixing modes too readily—so the SRA may come to us and say, ''This is what may happen in the future, so just mothball it. Put it to one side, but leave the line open.'' In other cases, there may no longer be services on a line but it acts as a useful
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fallback or contingency exit route in cases of disruption further down the line, so it is useful as a dispersal point and worthy of being kept open. The system whereby each case is judged on its own merits will prevail, and if, after all the processes are implemented, there are lines that have no stations because they have all been closed, and no services—franchise or other—because they have all been withdrawn, the decisions about whether the rail bed is dug up and so on will still come back to us as the strategic keeper of the flame for the national network.
I am engaging in a little exercise—actually, it is not little, so I should not say that it is. By any definition, there were extensive changes in 1963. Having looked at the pre-Beeching map, I think that it would be an interesting exercise generally but also as a matter of public policy to find out what has happened to all the lines. Rail beds up and down the country have not had anything done to them. The rails may have been taken up, but the rail beds are still there. In other cases, they have been built on and developed. It would be interesting simply to determine how many of the lines shut by Beeching have at least the potential to be restored in some shape or other. By the way, that is not a public expenditure commitment. There are some interesting curves, loops and other elements that perhaps could be brought back if they have not been used for anything else. It would be a rather useful—but probably academic—exercise to see what could prevail.
In essence, part 4 does not cover actual line closures. That process remains with Ministers.
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