Orders of the Day — Railways Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:18 pm on 6 December 2004.

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Photo of Alistair Darling Alistair Darling The Secretary of State for Scotland, The Secretary of State for Transport 4:18, 6 December 2004

I shall come to the question of franchising later. If I do not say anything about my hon. Friend's point, perhaps he will remind me of his question; I shall certainly come back to it. That is one way of guaranteeing an audience for at least another 15 minutes, because he will have to stay put until then. I would say to the hon. Member for Spelthorne that he should not worry; this would not be the first time that hon. Members had been taken aback by the fact that their amendment did not say quite what they thought it did. He should have a good look at the one tabled by the Conservatives.

There has been significant success on the railways, which is a tribute to all who work on them. Moreover, our investment nearly doubles railway investment over five years. Total investment in the four years to 2006 will be almost three times the amount at the time of privatisation. It is important to make that investment to back up the Bill.

Just 10 days ago, when we were discussing the Bill in the context of the Queen's Speech, Mr. Yeo—the Conservative spokesman—made the surprising allegation that we had cut spending on transport. I did not intervene at the time, because I was puzzled by his assertion. Let me put the record straight now.

The hon. Gentleman compared the Department's spending according to the 2002 spending review—£11.2 billion—with that in the 2004 review, which he saw as £10.4 billion. The reason for the apparent reduction is that about £450 million of planned DFT spending is going into transport, £138 million of which is going into the ScotRail franchise and therefore goes through the Scottish Executive's books. About £300 million funds the Health and Safety Executive and goes through the books of the Department for Work and Pensions, while about £50 million goes directly to local authorities for concessionary fares. I do not want to labour the point, as I appreciate that it is some years since the hon. Gentleman was a Minister and the intricacies of public accounts are sometimes baffling, but I assure him that we have not cut transport spending. Only he and the Conservative party propose to do that.