The hon. Gentleman must know that I am a liar. In those circumstances, if he believes that, he will believe anything. It is more important that Conservative Members read Labour party policy documents, because they might learn something. I do not have a great deal to learn from such policy documents.

If one reads the citizens charter, one realises that it will spawn more charters than the hydra could grow heads. I understand that we shall have charters for patients, tenants, parents and the taxpayer, charters to cover British Rail and London Underground, the Post Office, social security benefits agency, the police, local authorities—the list goes on. We shall have government by charter. I can imagine the Prime Minister responding to every new idea in Cabinet with the comment, "That's a most agreeable suggestion. Let's have a charter on it." He will inundate us with charters—and all because London Transport turned him down for a job.

We shall have charters to cover all manner of groups, but none to cover the Government—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) from the Opposition front bench. There is no charter to give voters the right to claim compensation from the Government when they have pursued policies that have created unemployment, homelessness, high interest rates, social injustice and economic incompetence. There is no charter provision for a General Election so that the people can have their say at the ballot box at a set time, rather than having to hang on until the Government can find the most appropriate time to make a rush to the polls.

The citizens charter is nothing more than a glossy confection. It is an epitaph to the accumulated failures of 12 years of Tory government. Having systematically run down and denigrated public services since 1979, they now expect the country to be grateful for being offered lower standards of service than we used to enjoy, and ones that are derisory in the light of what is enjoyed in many other European countries.

I shall take two examples of that and apply them to London. The first is housing. There were 37,240 households accepted as homeless by London councils last year—a rise of 12 per cent. on the previous year. There were 33,432 households in bed-and-breakfast accornmodation, hostels and other temporary homes—an increase of 31 per cent. over the previous year. The comparable figure in 1979 was 2,750. Over 60,000 Londoners are more than three months in arrears with their mortgage repayments. For council tenants, London rents have more than trebled between 1979 and 1989. For example, in Conservative Ealing, tenants have had to face a 100 per cent. increase in their council rents since January this year.

We have people living rough in cardboard boxes in doorways in the streets of London. There is no local authority provision for young people who are homeless—that should be written into a charter. I hear young people ask why they cannot find homes. One of the reasons for their homelessness is that the Prime Minister, when he had ministerial responsibility for social security, changed the rules and regulations. The young people who sleep rough in the streets of London have the Prime Minister to thank for having only £31 a week income support. We all know that £31 buys next to nothing in London now.

Homelessness has more than doubled in London in the past decade. In 1979, London local authorities started more than 9,000 new homes in the capital. This year there were 363 starts, the fewest since the second world war. That has come about because of Government policies.

Capital spending by London councils fell by 85 per cent. between 1979–80 and 1989–90. The allocation for London in the current financial year 1991–92 has been cut by a further 8 per cent. This Conservative Government are spending £6 billion less on provision for housing than was provided in 1979. It is not necessary to have a doctorate in housing management to understand why there is a homelessness crisis in London and throughout the country: the answer lies with Government policies. The homeless and the badly housed of the capital do not want glossy charters waved under their noses. They want homes, but they will not get them until a Labour Government are elected.

The citizens charter brims with transport issues. I remind the House that traffic speeds in central London have fallen to 10 mph, which is no more than the speed of a horse and cart at the turn of the century. The Confederation of British Industry estimates that congestion costs its members in commerce and industry in London and the south-east £10 billion a year.

London passengers pay the highest charges in fares per mile for bus, tube and rail travel in the whole of the European Community. Indeed, they pay double the average fare in other European cities. Since London Transport was taken away from the Greater London council, fares have increased by 25 per cent. on average in real terms. Some fares have increased by much more. The fare for a short-hop bus journey in central London has increased by 61 per cent. since 1984.

Worse is to come: the Government are now demanding that Network SouthEast should break even and that London Underground should become operationally profitable by 1992–93. That is something which no other network in Europe has been made to do. The result is that jobs are being cut and the quality of service is being reduced.

The Government plan to deregulate London's bus routes. We say that that will leave the service in chaos and threaten the future of the travelcard. It must be obvious to anyone who has any understanding of how a city works that an inefficient transport system means an inefficient city. That is bad for residents, business and visitors.

It is no consolation to those who sit in traffic jams or on stations, or who are stuck in carriages in tunnels, to be told that they can use the time to read the various charters that are being printed by central Government. It is an absurdity.

I shall examine a couple of the transport issues within the charter in terms of the undertakings that are on offer. For all those who have their charters easily to hand, I refer to page 17 and punctuality on British Rail. We are told: 92 per cent of trains are to arrive within five minutes of the published time all day (88 per cent. in the morning and evening peak)". An individual passenger does not, of course, travel on 92 per cent. of all trains. He or she travels 100 per cent. on one train. It is no consolation to that one passenger to find that the train on which he or she is travelling 100 per cent. is late. It is no consolation to anyone to be told, "Don't worry, because 92 per cent. of all other trains are running on time today."

The next heading is "Reliability". We are told: 99 per cent of trains should be run". I say amen to that, but why 99 per cent? It seems rather a strange figure to choose. When we think about it, it is not far off 100 per cent. Surely 99 per cent. sounds like the election turnout in the old-style Nicolae Ceausescu elections in Romania. We know that that did not make a great deal of sense either. What does it mean? I hope that the Minister will deal with that because I, for one, am rather confused.

The charter says: 100 per cent. of trains should be cleaned inside and out every day. They certainly should be. I hope that extra staff will be taken on to pick up all the charters that were flung on the floor in anger and frustration by the travellers sitting on the train that was not one of the 92 per cent. that arrived on time that day.

On waiting time at booking offices, the charter says: passengers should not wait for more than three minutes (five minutes in the peak). That sounds fairly straightforward, but on the next page—page 18 for those who are following this—it says of London Underground: no more than 2 per cent. of passengers will wait more than three minutes for their tickets. Hon. Members should try to imagine that. If someone is standing in a queue, how on earth is he to work out whether he is part of the 2 per cent. of passengers who have waited more than three minutes for their tickets? It is a recipe for chaos. If I were standing in a queue at Stratford station, waiting for a ticket, once I had worked that I was actually within that 2 per cent. of people, I would push myself to the front, wave my copy of John Major's charter and insist on having my ticket, now. I would get my face filled in, and I would no doubt deserve it. My teeth would be knocked out.

What would happen to me then? As it happens, the charter is quite useful. Page 12 provides a dentists charter. It says: Dentists' patients are entitled to clear information … All patients are now entitled to a treatment plan setting out what is proposed. Does that mean that if I can get into the dentist's waiting room, minus my front teeth that I have lost trying to enforce another part of the charter, I will have preferential treatment from the dentist? That should be included in the charter, because it is clear that there is an awful lot of trouble ahead for people who try to implement the various statements in the charter.

I refer once again to page 18, and the question of reliability on the London Underground. It says: no more than 7 per cent. of passengers will wait more than one and a half times the scheduled interval. That is a useful piece of information to have when one is sitting on the station in the rush hour wondering why the train has not turned up. How on earth do we work it out? Someone would have to be another Einstein to work out whether he had had a rum deal on the charter. It is certainly well beyond the capability of someone with three GCSEs at O-level.

I welcome notices in post offices about waiting time. On pension day, the post office in Forest Gate resembles a Moscow bread queue. I warn the Government that the charters on waiting times—in so far as anyone can understand them—are a prescription for public disorder. On railway stations, in DSS offices and in post offices, enraged individuals clutching their copy of Major's charter will quote abstract calculations about waiting times. It will be sheer chaos. What consolation will they have? It will be the consolation provided in the charter that those who are injured will have to wait for only two years for treatment in hospital.

The charters will not build homes, they will not provide jobs, they will not cut waiting lists at hospitals, and they will not get the trains running on time. Without adequate resources invested in public services, there is no real choice for the citizens of London or, indeed, throughout the country.

A Labour Government will make a genuine commitment to public services. The sooner a Labour Government are elected, the sooner we will get public services operating in the way they should. The sooner a Labour Government are elected, the sooner the Prime Minister can fulfil his lifetime ambition of becoming a bus conductor. One of the promises that the Labour Front Bench has made is that, when we are back in government, we will restore bus conductors to our London buses. That should encourage even the Prime Minister to vote for us.