Orders of the Day — Railways Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 9:11 pm on 6 December 2004.

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Photo of Greg Knight Greg Knight Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) 9:11, 6 December 2004

That does not invalidate my point that there is currently a dip, which my hon. Friends and I find very worrying.

The clear leadership and direction that Labour promised that the SRA would provide has never remotely looked like happening. Therefore, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk said, we welcome its proposed abolition. The Secretary of State asked why we did not put that in our reasoned amendment. I should tell the Minister—perhaps he can pass it on to the Secretary of State—that when one tables a reasoned amendment, one has to set out reasons why a Bill should not receive a Second Reading; one cannot list parts of it with which one is content. That is why our amendment is silent on that particular issue.

Our view is that giving more power to politicians is not the way to improve our railways. Likewise, allowing the currently unaccountable Network Rail to have even more control will not improve services. Although we are delighted to see the demise of the SRA, giving more powers to the Department will not help operators to get on with the job of providing a decent and improved rail service. More powers should be given to the train operating companies, which provide the passenger interface, so that they can provide a greater range of services that better meet the needs of travellers. After the political interference that the railways have endured for the past seven years, private industry needs to be given the confidence to invest without further Government meddling.

I want to comment briefly on rail freight, about which the Bill is strangely silent. With the disappearance of the SRA, no organisation appears to have a statutory obligation to promote or facilitate the growth of rail freight. I ask the Minister whether that is correct. People outside have expressed concerns that, by excluding rail freight from much of the measure, the Government risk leaving freight strategy in a vacuum, with nobody taking responsibility for it.

The people who contacted me say that if the Bill is enacted in its current form, no official voice will represent freight and fight its corner when network capacity is allocated. Does the Minister accept that the allocation of available capacity to freight and passengers must be assessed fairly and according to value for money and national best interests? The incentive to maximise capacity must surely be equal for freight and passenger services. Their performance should be measured on the amount of freight and passengers they can manage efficiently on the network. No provision attempts to deal with that and I would welcome hearing the reason from the Minister.

Like the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich, I want to comment on rail stock. As hon. Members know, the National Audit Office published a report in February that suggested that new rail rolling stock was being delivered late. It warned that new carriages being introduced into service were less reliable than the old slam-door vehicles that they replaced. Trains not only arrive late at the stations but cannot even arrive from the factory on time. Why should passengers have to put up with old, uncomfortable and sometimes dirty rolling stock while manufacturers take up to two and a half years to deliver new trains? Clearly, people will not use the railways if they are uncomfortable while travelling and feel dirty on arrival at their destination.

I want briefly to mention access to rail services by disabled people. That point has not been raised in the debate. Although I accept that other legislation is primarily responsible for delivering results on that matter, I would like the Minister to comment on the proposed end date by which all rail vehicles have to be accessible to disabled people. Do the Government have anything new to say about the requirement for improving disability access when rail vehicles are refurbished? Does that happen in every case? The issue is important for many disabled people who would like to travel by rail but currently cannot do so in safety.

I want to ask the Minister several questions. Clauses 22 to 44—22 provisions—deal with closures. They do not refer to the relevant lines but to the passenger services on them. The Bill includes nothing about what happens to the lines after a service is terminated. If a line currently carries freight or might do so in future, surely it should be kept open, at least for a time, to ascertain whether others want to increase the services or other companies wish to take up and run passenger services. Does the Minister agree?

Schedule 4 covers the Secretary of State's power to determine the scope and size of the network. There is some concern about its wording, especially proposed new paragraph 1G. It has been suggested that the provision might allow the Secretary of State, in determining the scope and scale of the network, to override private sector contracts, contrary to his undertakings. I do not believe that that is possible or in the Minister's mind but I would welcome an answer to that point.

In opening the debate, the Secretary of State said that he intended to consult about safety. Will the Minister tell us when he expects the consultations to be concluded? The Secretary of State also referred to the desirable aim of getting track and train companies to work ever closer together but went on to say that the Bill does not provide for that. Will the Minister regularly update the House on progress, perhaps through a periodic written statement?

On the provisions relating to London, and to giving powers to the current Mayor, I should like to reiterate something that my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk said earlier; we do not support these provisions. Two thirds of all train journeys arrive in or pass through London, leaving millions of passengers from outside the capital facing possible interference by the Mayor in their train services. For example, in an election year, it might suit the Mayor of London—whoever he is—to require a fast, non-stop train to halt at the edge of London to pick up mayoral voters. Passengers might also find their fares being increased to pay for increased expenditure on other services authorised by the Mayor. These are not fanciful concerns. The Bill says:

"A reference to a London railway passenger service is a reference to . . . a service for the carriage of passengers by railway between places in Greater London and places outside Greater London."

In our view, that drafting is far too vague. Will the Minister consent to look at it again in Committee, with a view to tightening it up?

We have heard about only part of the Government's transport policy in this debate. The Secretary of State likes to put himself forward as a benign, friendly, white- haired gentleman—[Hon. Members: "He's Santa!"] I would not call him Santa, although that is certainly a gentleman we think of at this time of year. The House should remember, however, what Dr. Howells said earlier this year. I notice that, following his remarks, that particular Minister has now been shunted off into the sidings in another Department. He said that the only way to end Britain's love affair with the car and to get people to use public transport was to

"tax people out of their cars in the same way as the authorities have tried to tax people off cigarettes."

That is the real Labour transport policy. The Government want to use taxation as a weapon to make one form of transport unaffordable, so that people have no choice but to take the train. We believe that it is far better to improve rail services, so that those who can complete their journey by rail actually want to do so. Labour's high-tax transport policy is a kick in the teeth for poor rural families and pensioners, for whom there are no rail services for their essential journeys.

Overall, this is a bad Bill, but it is not completely without merit. We support the abolition of the SRA and the streamlining of health and safety issues. However, in supporting those proposals, we do not have to accept the vehicle of this Bill. That is why we commend the reasoned amendment to the House.