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Mr. Redwood: I agree with my hon. Friend. His constituents often suffer from an inadequate underground system. It is another example of infrastructure in this country that is stretched to breaking, not nearly big enough and not modern enough for current uses. The entire underground should be air conditioned. We need two or three new underground lines, as a minimum. We need to improve the reliability of the existing lines. That all takes money.

I remember proposing some years ago in the House a privatisation scheme for the underground, the people's tube, which would have given everybody shares in the
 
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tube free and would have raised a lot of money from outside to build the two new lines that I thought then were the minimum that we needed, so that we could have a more modern underground. The Government decided on a different system, not one that I think was very felicitous, but we are where we are.

I hope the Secretary of State can work with his advisers and with those involved in the underground to see how we can get at least a couple of new lines on the underground to start providing that extra capacity, and how we can start to have full air conditioning and more modern trains so that when we have hot periods in the summer—the Government seem to think we will have more hot periods in the summer—people will be able to cope.

Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab): I accept that we will always want improvements in infrastructure and rolling stock, but as the right hon. Gentleman is speaking critically about the problems of transport in London, may I draw his attention to the annual London survey, which shows that 80 per cent. of London's transport users are satisfied with London's transport system, compared with previous surveys, which showed a much lower number of people who were satisfied? That shows a trend among people in London towards appreciating the improvement that have been made in our transport system, to the point where it has overtaken London's nightlife—

Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): Order. Interventions must be brief. That is a very lengthy intervention.

Mr. Redwood: I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for conserving my time, which is precious to me, if not to the hon. Gentleman. As a part-time Londoner, I do not live in such a happy world as that that he thinks 80 per cent. of the public inhabit; perhaps I belong to the other 20 per cent., but other, more accurate surveys agree with my view.

There is room for enormous improvement. We need increased capacity on the tube, better tube trains and a Secretary of State who, now that he has partially privatised the tube system, raises as much money as possible from the private sector and ensures that it is spent as efficiently as possible to allow us better to husband our resources.

People are prepared to spend a lot of money on transport, but they want something good for their money. They must spend enormous sums of money if they rely on railway transport, and we have heard many stories of people paying a lot of money for tickets and not even getting a seat, which is not only uncomfortable, but unsafe. Trains are intrinsically unsafe, because if they decelerate sharply, stop sharply or come off the tracks, people can be badly injured by being thrown around; a person who has a seat is much less likely to be injured than someone who does not.

One does not have the opportunity to wear a seat belt on a train, which would make trains much safer, whereas seat belts are mandatory in cars, where the risk is lower, because cars have fewer hard surfaces and
 
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dangerous interior features than trains. We must examine safety on trains. On fast trains, it is wrong that people do not get a guaranteed seat and do not have the option of wearing a seat belt in order to travel more safely.

The position on private investment could be much stronger. In Wokingham, there is a perfectly good scheme that would allow us to have a new station at no cost to the taxpayer, because if the underused station property were redeveloped, the developer gain would pay for the new station. Many of my constituents, the local council and I want to see that scheme happen, but it has sat in the pending tray for four or five years as the railway industry has experienced an enormous series of reorganisations under this Government.

The industry should get its act together on property and realise that there is an enormous resource in under-utilised or badly used property in the railway estate. Councils would be happy to work with local railway management to provide suitable planning permission for such sites to release money for the improvement and redevelopment of public facilities. Why is it that so many stations do not have the most obvious facilities these days? Why has space not been rented out so that people can buy food when they return home late in the evening and need something to eat? Why is there nowhere to get a coffee and a newspaper in the morning? A surprising number of stations lack the most obvious commercial facilities, which represents a money-making opportunity for the railway. If only the railway had commercial flair and spent less time arguing about 10-year strategic plans and dealing with Government bureaucrats and more time thinking about what its customers need and how it can raise the money commercially to provide it.

When the Government extend their plan to 2015, they should not only tell us that we need more capacity of all kinds, but come up with the policies to deliver increased capacity of more kinds. They should give the go ahead for new road routes, because the private capital will be there, if people are allowed to charge a toll. If they go over to comprehensive road pricing, the whole network could be expanded and maintained at private expense, because the toll money could be recycled. Knowing this Government, they would still make a profit out of the transaction, given the taxes that they would be likely to impose.

Will the Government examine rail capacity in London and elsewhere and consider how one or two big schemes could be privately financed and add to the capacity of the railway network? Will they examine how the railway industry can start to develop and redevelop its surplus property outside London to provide a stream of income into the railway to provide more modern facilities? And will they examine how the railway industry can join the modern world when it comes to safety standards and additional facilities at our stations?

6.19 pm

Mr. Paul Truswell (Pudsey) (Lab): We can only view with astonishment the brass neck of the Conservatives in tabling this motion. They did irreparable damage to public transport. They are a bit like arsonists who, having started a major conflagration, sit on the sidelines and complain that the fire service is not putting it out
 
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quickly enough. I do, however, have some reservations about how quickly the Government's fire service is putting out the conflagration. I regret that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), are no longer present, and apologise to my other Front-Bench colleagues, who may have heard these comments before.

Since the Conservatives deregulated bus services, quality and standards have fallen dramatically, fares have risen by almost 50 per cent. in real terms, and the number of passengers has fallen by more than a third in my area, West Yorkshire. That represents about 100 million passenger journeys. Fares have gone through the roof. In the period from April 2004 to June 2005, Firstbus in Leeds increased off-peak fares by 27 per cent. and peak fares by 19 per cent. Bus operators' own figures illustrate that operating costs during that period rose by only about 9 per cent. In January, fares went up yet again.

Under deregulation, bus operators can make profits while providing very poor services. They can pick and choose where they run services. Services are chopped and changed, missing or late. It is no wonder that passengers have deserted bus services in such numbers.

Mark Lazarowicz : We heard earlier about the different story in London. There is also a different story in Edinburgh, where bus use has gone up and prices are still low. Is it perhaps no coincidence that in London we still have a degree of regulation of bus services and in Edinburgh we still have community ownership of the local bus service?

Mr. Truswell: I am sure that there is no coincidence whatsoever. Obviously, quality contracts have operated in London because services were never deregulated. I understand that last year patronage in London went up by about 10 per cent., while in the rest of the country overall it went down by 3 per cent.

Passenger transport executives such as Metro in my area are able to influence directly only 20 per cent. of the network that they provide through tendered services. In effect, there is little competition for tenders, so it is difficult to test whether best value is being obtained. That is diametrically opposed to the result that was intended by opening up the market.

Quality bus partnerships are the Government's preferred way forward in tackling the dreadful legacy inherited from the previous Government.

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