---

Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I support very warmly what has been said by the noble Lord. I am also grateful for his tributes to Bill Sefton, who was known to me over a long period as someone who avidly worked—I mean worked—for the people of Merseyside and would never accept so much as a cheese sandwich in response to all his efforts. He was a true public servant of the sort that we should all try to emulate.

The amendment goes to the very heart of what we are talking about—local decision-making of people elected by people who live away from London. It is essential that we build on local decision-making. We must also appreciate that those people will become funders of railway services as well as designers. I think that it was Wilkes who said, "No taxation without representation", which holds very firm. If they are going to pay, they should be co-signatories. I cannot see what the Secretary of State is doing in trying to take away from people the right to have their say and actually be co-signatories to a franchise agreement that affects them intimately. We in Westminster are not talking about somewhere remote up in Manchester or Leeds; if you happen to live there, it is your train service that is affected, not something that is 200, 300
 
4 Apr 2005 : Column 516
 
or 400 miles away. I cannot see why the Secretary of State wishes to be so intimately involved with those franchises.

5.45 p.m.

Earlier this afternoon, I was talking to a member of the Greater Manchester PTE. He said, "In the negotiations with the franchise-holders of the Northern Rail franchise, if we were not co-signatories we would not be at the table talking to them about punctuality, reliability, stations and collecting fares". You need not only someone who pays, but someone who is your gamekeeper on the spot to see that the large sums of money dispensed are actually spent on what people want. I am at a loss to understand why the Government resist that so much.

I do not know whether the noble Lord proposes to press the amendment to a vote today. He is no doubt aware that, if he does so, he will have the support of noble Lords on these Benches, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, said earlier. I promise that, if he chooses to wait until Third Reading in the hope that Ministers will reflect on what he has to say, he will be supported then; he may be able to muster more troops to support him. If people will listen to the arguments rather than just be shepherded through the Lobbies, they will understand the strength of feeling about the issue.

Through their long history, the PTEs have been very good at investing money in the railway. When there has been a famine of investment, they have often been the one body producing new stations, rolling stock and ideas. They are a force for good. Occasionally Ministers may be irritated by the likes of the Strathclyde PTE in 1997 playing political games to hold up a couple of franchises, but that is not the usual way in which they behave. In a spirit of compromise, could the Minister not even allow the PTEs to be co-signatories and say to them, "You'll get so long to sign. If you hang up your signature for a year or two years, you cannot expect to be co-signatories. However, if you come forward to negotiations and sign at the end of them, you should be co-signatories. You should be the people who represent the local users of the service and determine whether the taxpayer is getting value for money"?

This is a signal issue that puts on trial the Secretary of State's real wishes about whether he wants a railway that we all own, or one that is governed only by the people over there in Marsham Street.

Lord Burlison: My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester in bringing forward the amendments. I agree very much with what he seeks to achieve, and I too urge the Minister to consider that the changes be incorporated in the Bill this afternoon. I would like to make two short contributions on the issues of service specification and rail franchise co-signatory status.

I maintain that the Government should not be removing PTE specification powers and centralising decisions on local rail services within the Department
 
4 Apr 2005 : Column 517
 
for Transport. The PTEs do not accept the Government's view that—I quote the Minister's words at Second Reading—the present arrangements for PTEs,

"give responsibility without the commensurate accountability".—[Official Report, 10/2/05; col. 931.]

It has been difficult for the Government to dig up examples of how PTEs have required changes to specifications that have led to increased costs. I have heard only one such example—the extreme case involving the new rolling stock in West Yorkshire PTE.

PTEs have no right for their increased franchise payments to be reimbursed through SRA grant or through any other funding channel. Indeed, it has been made clear that any increase in services required by a PTE at any time will not be funded by the SRA unless expressly approved. It has also been made clear that PTE rail funding may in future be reduced, which would leave PTEs to meet rail costs themselves if they chose not to reduce services accordingly.

In both the west Midlands and west Yorkshire, the PTEs have directly funded the provision of additional rolling stock above the level at which the SRA would otherwise have funded it. So, it is nonsense to suggest that the PTEs make all sorts of wild and unreasonable requests, leaving others to pick up the tab. I hope that my noble friend the Minister is prepared to concede that point and to accept the amendments.

I fail to understand the Government's position on rail franchise co-signatory arrangements. Replacing the existing rights of PTEs to change services and fares with separately negotiated contracts for individual service changes does not reduce complexity or bureaucracy. It simply does not. If the Bill were to pass into law as drafted, PTEs would have to support local rail services by way of separate contractual arrangements with the Secretary of State and with franchisees. Surely, anyone can see that that would result in additional contractual complexity and inefficiency while weakening the PTEs' contractual position.

How would it work in practice? In the case of the northern franchise, it would have resulted in the franchisee entering into five additional contracts, each potentially relating to different aspects of the franchised services, in place of a single "all parties" agreement. The scope for contractual conflicts is substantial and the additional administrative burden and bureaucracy immense.

The PTEs have accepted the assurances that they will remain co-signatories to current franchise agreements, although the northern franchise is to be subject to review in the light of a proposed significant re-specification in 2006. However, Clause 14(3)(a) would give the SRA the contractual right to remove PTEs from the northern franchise agreement within three months of the legislation coming into force, irrespective of the position of the Minister. To date, the SRA has given no assurance that it would not seek to exercise that contractual right. What are the PTEs to make of that? Can my noble friend the Minister give the PTEs that categorical assurance this afternoon?
 
4 Apr 2005 : Column 518
 

I hope that the powerful case made at every stage during the progress of the Bill will convince the Minister of the strength of feeling on these issues. I fear that I may have spoken for longer than I had intended, but I hope that the arguments put forward today and at earlier stages by noble Lords from all parts of the House will find favour with the Government, and I urge them to accept the amendments.

Lord Snape: My Lords, I start by declaring an interest as an employee of the National Express Group. I do not wish to detain your Lordships for more than a few moments, because the matter was debated extensively in Committee. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester for his kind words about my contribution at that stage.

Governments regularly do things that many of us in this House and the other place find baffling. We are, of course, expected to support the government to whom we give our political allegiance, although we may be baffled, but I must confess that I cannot understand the Government's view of this matter. A government who profess to want to listen to the voice of local democracy should not behave in this way regarding PTEs.

I make no special claim to any greater experience than anyone else in your Lordships' House. Although I have been here only a short time, I am aware of the danger of so doing. But I pointed out in Committee—I do not wish to repeat anything that I said there—that, as an employee of the National Express Group, I joined the team that was successful in gaining the Central Trains franchise eight or nine years ago, and we were subjected to some thorough cross-examination by PTE and PTA members at that time.

I can also claim, as my noble friend reminded me, that I was, although it was 30 years ago, a member of the somewhat clumsily named, South East Lancashire and North East Cheshire PTA. Again, at that time, in the aftermath of many of the cutbacks of the Beeching era, that PTA in that area fought not just to preserve the local services that remained, following the ravages of the good or not-so-good Dr Beeching, but to increase those services. We are seeing a similar pattern emerge throughout the PTE areas in the United Kingdom.

North of the Border, where the Scots have their own Executive and PTE—perhaps they are doubly blessed—there has been enormous progress towards reopening long-closed stretches of railway line. Indeed, in the past few weeks, the wide-scale reopening of the Waverley line has been announced. Are we seriously considering that such advances would be made if these matters were left to the Department for Transport—whatever it is called, wherever it is based and whichever government is in power? I doubt that such a happy situation would come about in those circumstances. Sometimes it seems to me that Ministers, in whatever government, and their civil servants, regardless of government, are most concerned to see that their own services, inevitably based in London and the south-east, are not just preserved, but extended. That fleet of ministerial cars
 
4 Apr 2005 : Column 519
 
does not just bring Ministers to their departments, it brings many civil servants, and it can regularly be seen parked outside main line stations in this city.

Yet, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, reminded us, matters outside London are all too often seen as being "somewhere else" and "someone else's problem". Yet, the very people whose voices should be heard in the planning and expansion of their rail services will, if the Government fail to accept the amendments, not be heard. Their experiences will be discounted and, despite being answerable to their electorates, they will obviously play no part in the planning of rail services in their areas.

I cannot believe that that is what my noble friend on the Front Bench believes, although I do not know what it might say in the brief that he must deliver on behalf of the department. My noble friend and I have been friends for many years—although I might be straining that bond by my comments. After all, if I remember correctly, we were founder members of a football team in the other place. I might well receive a good kicking as a result of my contribution today. Seriously, I cannot believe that a Labour Government can behave in this way towards passenger transport executives, who have brought not only their money and expertise to local rail services in their areas—throughout the UK—but have brought the wishes of their electors to bear in improving those rail services.

I am not sure what my noble friend's intentions are with regard to the amendment. However, whether or not the negotiations, about which I continue to hear a great deal, take place in the next few days, I hope that the Government will look again at the matter and ensure that the voice of local democracy is not only heard but is preserved for the future.

6 p.m.

---