I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity this afternoon to raise the subject of the Richmond-Broad Street railway line. I am also grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport for sparing time to be here, although I am disappointed that his right hon. Friend the Minister has not found it possible to attend to answer the debate on this most important line—possibly the most important in the Greater London area.

I want to make my position clear regarding the Beeching plan for the reorganisation of British Railways as a whole. I have never been, and I am not, in any way opposed in principle to the suggestions and ideas incorporated in the original plan. I believe that the railways must be modernised, and modernised swifty, and that the plan as a whole is an excellent one. But there are certain lines where a closure would clearly be quite unacceptable in the public interest.

In my opinion the Richmond-Broad Street line is one of these. It is the uncertainty about the future of this line which I wish to mention. I have raised this matter in this House on many occasions during the past two years. Several of my hon. Friends and myself put down a Motion on the Order Paper some months ago on the subject. The hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt), whom I am glad to see here this afternoon, raised the matter on an Adjournment Debate—I think the only other one—on the subject on 17th May, 1963. So it will be seen that all parties are agreed that the passenger services should continue on this line. The hon. Member for Willesden, West was supported by his right hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson), then the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North, who I had the privilege to fight in the General Election of 1955. I am glad to see that the Conservative candidate who opposed the right hon. Member for St. Pancras, North in the General Election of 1959, my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Mitchell), is sitting on my lefthand side today. He also has played a great part in trying to stop the closure of the passenger services on this line.

Great concern has also been expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Dudley Smith), who is also here this afternoon and who, I know, is hoping to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker. I am also glad to have the firm and staunch support of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Brooke), who is also here, and who is also, like me, opposed to the continuing uncertainty regarding the future of the Richmond to Broad Street Line. I would like to mention two former Members of Parliament, Mr. Johnson Smith, the former Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South, and Mr. Skeet, the former Member for Willesden, East, who were untiring in their efforts to represent their constituents and to try to make certain that the line was not closed.

The passenger services on this line have been under threat for two long years. The proposed closure was, in fact, listed in the original plan drawn up by Dr. Beeching in 1962. Following this proposal, which is in the plan—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman who is to reply to this debate will have seen it—British Railways decided to try to make economies in the running of the line in order to make it an economic proposition. I take this opportunity of congratulating them on the very great endeavours which they have made to try to make the line more efficient and to find economies in running it as a whole.

As a result of this we had six months' notice as from October, 1963, that no decision would be taken about the line for that period of time. In May, 1964, a decision was still not reached by Dr. Beeching and his inquiry within the British Railways organisation was not completed. I have a letter from Dr. Beeching dated 7th May, 1964, in which he said: It is true that last October the London Midland Region stated that it would be about six months before a decision would be taken whether to proceed with the proposal to withdraw this service or not. Time was needed to study the effect of the economy measures which had been introduced since the publication of the Reshaping Report (in which the service is listed for withdrawal), and of others which were in mind at the time. This is a much more complicated question than the average passenger train withdrawal proposal. It has to be considered in relation both to other services using Broad Street Station and to railway planning for the future. The issues involved are such that it will be some weeks yet before we shall have them classified sufficiently for a decision to be made and announced. Since that time grave concern has continued to be felt by residents living all along the line, by passengers who travel on the line and by local authorities, all the way from Richmond in my Constituency round the arc which the railway follows to Broad Street in north London. In view of the uncertainty, I was really amazed at the reply which the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Transport gave to me in the House on 11th November this year when I asked him: Will the Minister assure the House that if he receives from the Railways Board a proposal for closure, he will turn it down? He made the following reply: I should have thought that there is no great uncertainty about this line, because there is as yet no proposal to withdraw the service." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th November, 1964; Vol. 701, c. 1008.] The Minister could not have done his homework, because there had been a proposal to withdraw the service in the original plan which was produced by Dr. Beeching. A formal proposal has not yet been confirmed, but the Minister must know that it has been considered and must know that it was in the original document produced by Dr. Beeching. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary has noted this point.

While realising that there is no firm proposal yet, I would tell the new Minister—I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will pass this on to him—some of the reasons why my hon. Friends, and, indeed, hon. Members on both sides of the House, find that the proposal, if it is put forward in the form of a categorical decision by Dr. Beeching, to withdraw the passenger service is unacceptable to all of us. Firstly, 18,000 people use this line each day. If the line is closed, all these people, presumably, will be dumped on to the London Transport bus services with all the resulting strain that will inevitably fall on the bus services as a whole. Secondly, like all commuter lines—because this is basically a commuter line—it tends to have the most use at rush hours, but, unlike most commuter lines, it is also used at the weekends.

I have the honour to represent an extremely beautiful constituency and I am glad to say that Londoners come from all over the area to see Kew Gardens, the River Thames, Richmond Park, Petersham, Ham and other parts of my constituency of Richmond. So it is a line which is used at the weekends as well as during the rush hours in the week. Hon. Members on both sides of the House think that even more use could be made of it, if the line was more efficiently run, and therefore we welcome the inquiries which Dr. Beeching has been making during the past months.

But the passengers and the local authorities, which are all very much concerned along the length of the line, all feel that more advertising could be done and that the stations themselves could be improved and made more attractive. We still cannot understand why the line has not been included on the London Transport maps. This has always been a matter we have found quite incomprehensible. We have been told again and again by various authorities concerned that it cannot be put on the maps, and I should be grateful for enlightenment on this by the Parliamentary Secretary.

The main point that I wish to impress upon the Parliamentary Secretary is why cannot this line be included in the special category of proposed major closures? I think he will know what I mean. In answer to the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) on 4th November this year, the Minister of Transport said: As my hon. Friend is aware, the lines out of Inverness, the line to Wick and the line to Kyle were clearly major closures which were unacceptable from the start. He went on to say what the Secretary of State for Scotland said at the time. Then he said: That is the sort of thing which I want to avoid in future."—[OFT IC IAL REPORT, 4th November, 1964; Vol. 701, c. 201.] In other words, he was apparently excluding certain lines in Scotland in view of the public interest in them and their special situation as opposed to the ordinary proposed closures that may be taking place. It is quite clear that a special category of proposed closures has been established by the right hon. Gentleman. I believe that many of us would like to see the Richmond-Broad Street Line included in this category—in other words, that an announcement should be made now that it will not be closed, even if a firm proposal is put forward, because it comes into this special category of railway line.

My next point is slightly controversial. There is no doubt that during the General Election campaign, hon. Members opposite in constituencies all the way along this line stressed the fact that they would press to remove uncertainty if they were returned to Parliament.