'Any proposal to withdraw first class passenger accommodation from an existing service shall be deemed to be a proposal to discontinue a service under Part 4 of this Act.'.—[Mr. Chope]

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to consider the following amendments: No. 52, in clause 32, page 33, line 21, at end insert—

'(e) a report by the Rail Passengers' Council concerning the economic, social and environmental costs and benefits of the proposal.'.

No. 53, in clause 33, page 34, line 43, at end insert—

'(1A) A closure ratification notice applying specifically to passenger services shall not be construed as applying to freight services.'.

No 5, in page 41, line 38, leave out Clause 39.

No. 30, in clause 39, page 42, line 49, at end insert

'"railway" has its wider meaning for the purposes of the Railways Act 1993; and'.

Government amendments Nos. 9 to 11.

The new clause would require proper consultation and discussion in respect of any proposal to withdraw first class passenger accommodation from an existing railway service. Discontinuing a first-class service would be put on a par with discontinuing any other service and trigger the consultation arrangements under part IV of the Bill.

Why is the new clause necessary? We believe that the Government have a covert agenda to ameliorate overcrowding on the railways by converting first-class accommodation to second class, instead of by expanding capacity.

I hope that that is right.

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman thinks that the Heathrow Express is an example of a better form of practice. When faced with increasing demand it increased the number of carriages on each service from 8 am to 9 am. That, surely, is a better way of responding to increased demand than by eliminating first class.

It may be of interest to the hon. Gentleman to know that the Heathrow Express is about to lose its first-class compartments.

If that is so, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree that that should be the subject of consultation and discussion with people who use the airport and that service. If that is the proposal and it is coupled with the threat hanging over the Gatwick Express, it drives a coach and horses through the Government's lip service to integrated transport. We need to ensure that our main airport hubs are linked by good quality transport to the central conurbation. That includes ensuring that public transport is of sufficient quality to appeal to those who aspire to travelling first class, as I suspect most hon. Members do, certainly when they are on official parliamentary business.

First-class accommodation is used by a variety of people. Many of them are vulnerable, elderly, have disabilities or are expectant mothers

Some of them are rich.

Perhaps some of them are rich. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to pursue his agenda for levelling down, let him join in the debate. Many people who use first-class accommodation are probably significantly less well off than he is, but choose to do so because they feel that if they were to travel standard class, as it is called, their health would be in jeopardy. A recent example was raised only yesterday in a debate in Westminster Hall of a pregnant lady who lost her child as a result of overcrowding on the train. We know that some of the more enlightened train operating companies, such as South West Trains, Thameslink and South Eastern Trains, offer complimentary first class upgrades to pregnant women holding season tickets when no seats are available in standard class. Obviously, they could not do that if there was no first-class accommodation.

Others using first-class accommodation have private or confidential work to do on the train, such as Government Ministers. Others choose to pay a premium—an unregulated fare—to provide more space and comfort and a better chance of obtaining a seat. That is particularly true of people joining busy commuter lines at intermediate stations. On the line that I use between Christchurch and Waterloo, it is possible for people joining the train at Christchurch or Hinton Admiral to get a seat, but for those who join at Winchester, for example, it is almost impossible. Many people are prepared to pay a premium fare so that they can have a seat in first class. A similar situation arises on many commuter lines into Paddington, including the Chippenham and Didcot lines.

First-class accommodation is also used in connection with high value added tourism services, which are particularly important for rural economies. The Great Western mainline route utilisation strategy, published by the Strategic Rail Authority in January, contained the expression,

"Alteration to the mix of first and standard class seating".

That was as a possible means of increasing capacity. The Daily Telegraph picked that up in a report on 13 January under the byline of the transport correspondent.

"A scheme to ease train overcrowding by reducing the number of first-class seats was put forward by Government rail advisers yesterday.

The Strategic Rail Authority said peak-time congestion on routes into London Paddington could be trimmed by converting premium accommodation to standard-class on turbo commuter trains and some high-speed services.

However, it also suggested that the gain in seats would be wiped out by the expected growth in passenger numbers within 12 months.

The SRA ruled out more ambitious plans for faster journeys and increased frequencies on grounds of cost, and warned there was little prospect of improving capacity or punctuality before 2011."

That is the sorry saga of this Bill and its background. It is a Bill to enable the Government to take control of a railway service which will be in decline in future because of a lack of investment. Because the Government have been embarrassed by the demand of the independent rail regulator, they have decided to circumvent the powers of that regulator and take more control of the service. That is why the Government are making themselves directly responsible for whether there will be first-class seats on mainline commuter services into London.

The story goes on. The Daily Telegraph correspondent went on to say:

"The SRA strategy was criticised by consumer groups. Mike Greedy, of the Western England regional passenger committee, said, 'If we want major improvement in rail services, there has to be substantial investment. Otherwise we stand no chance at all of encouraging people to switch to rail from the car.'"

It is the Government's agenda and is explicit in the Bill that people like Mr. Greedy, who serve diligently on the regional passenger committee, will be out of a job because the Government are abolishing regional passenger committees and centralising them. It is much more convenient for the Government if there are no people like Mr. Greedy to comment on their actions.

I raised those issues in Committee. The Minister described my questions as "idle fantasies and speculation". He then went on to describe them as "patent nonsense". I sought an assurance that the Government would not allow train operators to withdraw first-class accommodation on long distance commuter services to London, but I received no reply. I have asked about this on other occasions and the Minister has ducked and weaved and refused to confront this important issue.

The new clause gives the Government a chance to clarify their intentions in relation to the future of first-class rail travel. It ensures that if there are to be changes involving perhaps the withdrawal of first class, those changes should first be subject to proper consultation with the travelling public, as is required under part IV of the Bill.

I rise to speak to amendment No. 30 to clause 39—the so called bustitution clause of the Bill. I also tabled amendment No. 29, which was not selected by Mr. Speaker.

I want to explore the scope and practical impact of clause 39. Where a train service is reduced or removed in a passenger transport authority area, clause 39 provides that that train service will be replaced by a bus service, so that the people who previously used the train have a bus service. It goes further than that, however, by allowing passenger transport authorities and passenger transport executives to impose a quality contract on bus operators in the area, which effectively means the regulation of those buses—even if train services are not being removed, it is good to re-regulate buses in metropolitan areas.

My questions concern the practicality and limits of clause 39. To explore those questions, one must realise that transport in metropolitan areas is not run by benign bus companies that deliver services efficiently, effectively and economically. In my part of Greater Manchester, the service is dominated by First group, which has an appalling record on punctuality and bus maintenance. In a recent inspection, the wheels were found to be falling off three of the buses, which is not unusual. In Yorkshire, an inspection of 96 vehicles found that more than half of them were not fit to be on the road.

The environment is not benign. I have met representatives from Arriva, First group and other bus companies, who do not like the idea of regulation. One of the reasons why they do not like it is simple: those bus companies make 14 per cent. profit in metropolitan areas outside London and 8 per cent. profit in Greater London, where the system is regulated. The regulated bus system in London works effectively and efficiently, unlike the system in other metropolitan areas in this country. The bus companies do not want to co-operate in providing a comprehensive integrated transport system. They provide services to give them the greatest possible bottom line, and they compete on the road in order to do so—sometimes they compete, but sometimes they form cartels and monopolies in order to make profits.

How does clause 39 overcome the problem of section 124 of the Transport Act 2000, which states how PTAs and PTEs can introduce quality contracts? The Government are reducing the timetable for consultation in section 124 to six months, which is welcome. However, section 124 also states that quality contracts may be introduced when they are the only practical way to provide bus services in an area. That is a high hurdle over which the PTAs and PTEs must jump. My reading of clause 39 is that section 124 of the 2000 Act remains, so that hurdle must still be overcome. Will the Minister explain how quality contracts can be implemented if bus companies are determined to change their services? Under the deregulated system, bus companies often provide services that they withdraw immediately after the consultation period. Clause 39 is defective and will not achieve its objective.

Clause 39 is also ambiguous. In Committee, we had an interesting debate—I thought that it was interesting, although I do not know whether the Minister agrees—about how far a quality contract can be extended following the de minimis withdrawal of a train service. If one train were removed from one commuter line in south Yorkshire or Greater Manchester, would clause 39 allow the regulation of all buses in south Yorkshire or Greater Manchester? I hope that the Government intended to leave that wonderful loophole to improve the delivery of bus services in metropolitan areas, but I do not think that that was their intention.

The limits of the quality contracts are not clear. In Committee, the Minister gave the helpful reply that quality contracts do not mean a substitute bus running alongside a railway line to the same timetable, and that the replacement service will be integrated into the rest of the system, but he did not provide a clear answer on how far that contract can go. Amendment No. 29 is designed to explore those issues so that we do not implement defective legislation that does not allow PTAs to introduce quality contracts when the conditions described in the Bill occur. The matter is important and we must get it right. As I said earlier, a regulated system would have merit without clause 39, but if clause 39 is included, I hope that it will be used to introduce a regulated bus service.

On new clause 1, although I appreciate that it is helpful to have first class and standard class on most lines, Mr. Chope over-egged his pudding. I often travel by first-class rail, but I also often travel standard class from north Wales to south Wales, and I am in reasonable health after doing so. To suggest that travelling by standard class is a health risk is beyond the bounds of credibility.

Amendment No. 52 seeks to introduce a further paragraph in clause 32(4), which concerns references to the Office of Rail Regulation. Railways are an integral part of the economy. They provide not only transport, but social, environmental and economic benefits. I hope that the Government will look favourably on amendment No. 52, which would complement clause 32(4) and round off the criteria for references to the Office of Rail Regulation. As it stands, clause 32(4) merely refers to "consultation" and does not refer either obliquely or plainly to the social, environmental and economic costs and benefits of the proposal being referred to the Office of Rail Regulation. I hope that the Minister can respond to that amendment, and possibly even accept it—I live in hope.

Amendment No. 53 is a probing amendment, which states:

"A closure ratification notice applying specifically to passenger services shall not be construed as applying to freight services."

If the Minister is prepared to tell me whether that is the case, the amendment will have been worth while. I hope that he can respond one way or t'other.

I will be brief because I know that Members wish to speak to other important amendments. I look forward to the Minister's response.

I tabled amendment No. 5 simply to allow me to express concerns in the rail industry and elsewhere about the process of—I hate the word—bustitution. The post-Beeching experience shows us that where such substitution bus services were introduced they often did not survive for long. We therefore need to take great care as regards any legislation that enables passenger transport authorities to undertake them.

Members on both sides of the House support the concept of quality controls with regard to bus quality contracts. London's regulated bus service has proved a success. However, it is strange that the Bill introduces bus quality contracts solely in relation to rail substitution services. What will the Government do to ensure that bus regulation is promoted throughout the country using bus quality contracts? It is unusual and bizarre to link that solely to the removal of railway services. I am concerned that if we allow the clause to go forward without further refinement, bus substitution services that are provided after rail service cuts will ultimately be cut once again, as they were after the Beeching regime.

I fear that it falls to Conservative Members to defend the interests of first-class rail passengers. Nevertheless, my hon. Friend Mr. Chope made some serious points. If high-quality passenger accommodation is available on all our trains, more people will use public transport, including those who might have been dissuaded from doing so in the past. In Heathrow, for example, taxi traffic may have been reduced as a result of the Heathrow Express. That would have more effect in the constituency of John McDonnell than in other parts of London. Does the Minister have any evidence that high-quality new services such as the Heathrow Express and Gatwick Express, with first-class accommodation, make a contribution to getting traffic off the roads? If not, will he conduct such a survey?

The amendment tabled by Mr. Stringer is sensible, but it shows a certain of degree of wishful thinking on his part about what goes on in London. While I would not want to gainsay anything said by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, there are problems with the highly-regulated bus transport market in a broader sense, as well as in relation to bustitution. A significant amount of work is taking place on the tube and rail networks in the capital, often at weekends. There are very effective bustitution arrangements to deal with that, and I must give credit to Transport for London for doing a good job in that regard. As I live and work in central London, I use the buses regularly. I would be the first to say that there have been improvements to that service over the past four years under Mayor Livingstone. However, I am afraid that they have come at a great cost, which I suspect that he rather hoped would be underwritten by the Treasury. That has not happened, with the result that TFL faces losses of up to £1 billion a year from its budget for 2007–08.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the regulated system that existed in London before it had a Mayor worked better than in the other metropolitan areas? It lost virtually no passengers between 1985 and 1999, when other cities lost 30 to 40 per cent. of their passengers; and before Mayor Livingstone, there was no subsidy. It was not a perfect system, but it worked better than elsewhere in the country, and we should have the benefit of that kind of system.

I accept that. The hon. Gentleman will be glad to know that I consider Manchester to be this country's second city, partly because my in-laws live in Wilmslow, about 12 miles away from it. That is probably also why I can pronounce the name of the hon. Gentleman's constituency better than most southerners. He makes an entirely fair point. London's bus system has been pretty sophisticated, and regulation has helped. Transport for London does a good job in that regard, but there is a cost to be paid.

In central London, in particular, we have the problem of an enormous number of services, particularly in places such as Oxford street and Trafalgar square, where one sees bus after bus. That reminds me of what happened after the much-criticised deregulation of the market. In the mid-1980s, Oxford, where I was an undergraduate, had a massively deregulated market, and it was well-known that in Cornmarket one would see eight or nine buses from different companies all heading out towards London within five minutes of one another.

Here in London, things are not quite so simple. I hope that the Government will give serious consideration to what was said by Labour Members and by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, who made a powerful case in relation not only to public safety but the broadening out of the use of our railways. That will be an important step forward if we are to get as much traffic off our roads as possible. The issue goes well beyond passenger traffic, as we also need to get as much freight as possible off our roads and on to rail.

Congestion is not only a problem for central London. Within the next few weeks, there will be a referendum on congestion charging zones in Edinburgh, and that may happen in other parts of the country. The railways must be part of the solution in the months, years and decades ahead.

The hon. Member for Christchurch mentioned the case of Mrs. Janice Norman, the lady who lost her baby after being poked in the stomach while travelling a few weeks previously. My hon. Friend Tom Brake has been pursuing the matter. When I raised it in Committee, I was reassured by what the Minister said and therefore withdrew my new clause on a campaign for considerate commuting. I do not necessarily accept that there is a link between that case and travelling first class.

I am attracted to the new clause not on health grounds but on the simple premise that where a service is introduced with certain criteria, and that service is to be withdrawn, it is right that the public should have an opportunity to be consulted.

Moreover, we know from the figures on traffic growth that it stems mostly from more affluent drivers, and if we are to persuade them to come off the road and get on to the train, it will often be necessary to provide a premium service.

I shall be interested to hear the Minister's response.

I am grateful to Mr. Chope for explaining the point of new clause 1. However, I do not support his aim or the conspiratorial fantasies that lie behind it and I have grave reservations about the practical effect of the new clause.

The discontinuance provisions in part 4 are designed to deal with proposals to do away with a passenger service or close a station or part of the network. Those are specific matters. To protect passengers' interests, the procedures that have to be followed in those circumstances are set out in the Bill and are rightly rigorous. They rightly received a good deal of scrutiny in Committee. On the other hand, withdrawing first-class accommodation from a particular route or service might affect some passengers. However, there is a difference for a community between having a rail service that is more or less convenient than the existing one and having no service. The procedures in part 4 are designed to deal with only the latter.

I am also concerned about the practicalities. There is no incentive to take away first-class accommodation where it is well used and every incentive for the operator to get the balance right for the benefit of all customers. That makes sense if it is thought through. There is no sense in requiring operators to run trains with almost empty first-class seats when there is little demand and at times when standard-class passengers cannot get a seat. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman's concern has been prompted by First Great Western's route utilisation strategy, which includes proposals to alter the mix of first and standard-class seating on some routes. If that is implemented, it would be a further factor for consideration in addition to the train operating companies' commercial judgment.

However, the essential principle still applies: imposing a statutory procedure will seriously inhibit operators' flexibility to respond to changing demand and others' ability to propose to them that they might do so. Although the new clause might appear to defend the interests of specific sets of passengers, it does nothing for passengers as a whole—first-class, standard-class, steerage or whatever else exists—because it would restrict operators' flexibility to respond to the passengers about whom the hon. Gentleman seems to be concerned.

The proposal also appears to raise some complicated issues of definition, because it refers simply to first class. There is no industry-wide definition of first class. At least one operator has no first class as such, but offers a choice of standard and club. The new clause would not cover that. Others have intermediate categories such as silver standard. Again, the new clause does not reflect that. Each offers the passenger a slightly different package, and even when first-class accommodation is advertised as such, the precise service varies from operator to operator.

Those who want to travel first class do not do so in the hope that there will be three first-class carriages on a train; they simply want a seat in first-class accommodation. It does not matter to the business community, or whoever the hon. Gentleman meant, whether three carriages or one carriage separate them from the riff-raff—the clear implication of his remarks—so long as they get the service for which they paid. That only reinforces my view that we should avoid statutory constraints on operators' commercial freedom to offer different services and that any attempt to impose them would throw up serious problems of definition and practicality.

In short, the new clause is impracticable as well as undesirable, and I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw it.

Let me deal with the other amendments briefly. Amendment No. 52 would impose a new duty on the Rail Passengers Council to provide a report on the economic, environmental and social costs and benefits of a closure proposal as part of the material accompanying a reference to the Office of Rail Regulation in clause 32.

I take the points that Mr. Llwyd made, but I believe that the amendment is unnecessary because the initiator of the proposal would already have carried out such an assessment. That body, either an operator or railway funding authority, is under a duty to assess the effects of a closure proposal according to the closures guidance that the Secretary of State, Scottish Ministers and the National Assembly for Wales, as the case may be, have a duty to provide under clause 42.

Earlier this week, I sent the Chairman of Standing Committee A, which deliberated on the Bill, a note setting out current thoughts on the contents of the closures guidance. A copy is in the Library. The note states that any assessment of a closure proposal should cover the costs and benefits of environmental, economic, safety, accessibility and integration effects. Those of course include the effects on passengers, freight users and operators, as well as on the environment. Assuming that the Bill obtains Royal Assent, we shall consult on the draft closures guidance before the main network modification provisions are brought into force. The Office of Rail Regulation's role is to ensure that the assessment is carried out in accordance with the guidance and that it meets any criteria in it. That provides important independent input into the procedures.

Requiring the Rail Passengers Council to do a similar assessment could put considerable strain on its resources only to replicate work that has already been done. I therefore accept the thrust and import of the amendment but believe that, although the hon. Gentleman's points were well made, the headlines of the closures guidance that we have already issued cover them. I hope that he accepts that.

Amendment No. 53 appears to intend to exclude freight services from the network modification procedures in the Bill. Again, I respectfully suggest that that is unnecessary as the provisions in the Bill for discontinuing services apply only to passenger services, as do the current procedures—which we seek to replicate in the new settlement for the industry—in the Railways Act 1993.

However, that is most definitely not to say that freight operators or customers have no input into the network modification procedures. The note on closures guidance clearly states our intention that the final guidance will make it clear that, if freight services are affected by a closure proposal, the impact on freight users and operators must be assessed and taken into account when developing the proposals. Furthermore, if freight operators are affected by the proposal, schedule 7(3)(2)(k) provides for a statutory duty to consult them. I would also expect freight customers to be consulted under those circumstances. Although the network modification elements of the measure refer specifically to passenger services, other components protect the role of freight on rail lines and parts of the network.

Let me deal with the amendments to clause 39. We have a sort of dichotomy, because one amendment would remove it altogether and the other would extend it to light rail and other guided systems. I take the point made by my hon. Friend Mr. Stringer that amendment No. 30 would make more sense had amendment No. 29 also been selected.

With regard to amendment No 5, which my hon. Friend John McDonnell tabled, I accept the concerns, which are rooted in history, about all the promises that were made at the time of Beeching for a host of bus services to replace many of the rail lines that were to close. The substitution of buses was either not forthcoming or happened for only a short time.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley said, there is a regulatory framework in statute in the Transport Act 2000, suitably adjusted with regard to timing. We made it clear in the July White Paper on the role of transport in the broader sense, not the rail White Paper, that we are trying to encourage authorities, especially in urban areas, to devise far-sighted, radical and integrated transport packages for all modes of transport. In that context, we would be happy to make the bus service operators grant and other elements available to the authorities so that they had far more control over the buses and could replicate something similar to the semi-regulated position that pertains in London.

I am pleased to hear what my hon. Friend has just said, but does he accept that the only practicable way of introducing quality contracts would involve a virtually insurmountable hurdle that would ultimately have to be tested in the courts? Will he reconsider whether that test could be reduced, so that there could be a better balance between the interests of passengers and the interests of the operators in making profits?

In all candour, I have to say no, I do not accept that. As the Minister with responsibility for buses last year and this year, I have said that I do not believe that local authorities have pushed the regulatory framework in the Transport Act 2000 to its limits, with or without taking into account what we said in the July White Paper. They have not been dilatory, but they have been slow in coming forward with imaginative ways of moving towards a bus quality contract. There are many ways, under the 2000 Act and the proposals in the July White Paper, in which local authorities can move towards affording their communities the required regulatory framework and subsequent bus provision. We stand ready to work with any local authority to push things in that direction, not least in the context of what we said in July. So I do not accept the thrust of what my hon. Friend has just said, although he will know that his view is shared by many of our colleagues, and almost certainly by many people in the passenger transport executives.

We are familiar with both sides of this argument. The implication of what my hon. Friend the Minister is saying is that the Secretary of State for Transport can take the decision to agree quality contracts. The strength of the argument put forward by my hon. Friend Mr. Truswell and I is that, while section 124 of the 2000 Act remains, that decision is with the courts, not with the Secretary of State. It is therefore very difficult for any local transport authority to show that its proposals are the only practical way available.

There are certainly clear and exacting criteria in the Transport Act 2000. They need to be seen in the light of changes that we have made to the regulatory framework since then, and of the way in which we shall take forward the announcements that we made in July. We are starting to talk seriously with a range of authorities about how all these elements can be brought together, and I do not doubt that my hon. Friends the Members for Manchester, Blackley and for Pudsey and I will have further deliberations on it with a whole range of other colleagues as well. It is time to talk far more readily about how all the assorted modes can work together and, in that context, whether quality contracts have a role.

In terms of network modification, it is appropriate to have such measures in the Bill, although I accept the concerns that have been expressed about what prevailed post-Beeching. I do not accept that we are seeking to do something similar. This was debated at length in Committee. Where a local community's transport needs result in a requirement for a quality contract so that buses can replace lines and services that have been discontinued, it makes perfect sense to have one. We discussed the assorted elements involved, and we need to look at the issue in much more detail and do much more work on the substance of how the provisions will work. They could well form part of a broader quality contract that could be brought in for a particular area.

It is important that the provisions should be in the Bill, but not to facilitate closing another third of the rail network, as Beeching did, while promising to replace the services with buses and then not doing so, or doing so only for the short term. It makes sense that the provisions relating to facilities for bus substitution—I shall not use the horrendous word "bustitution"—be included in the Bill. In this context, it has already been pointed out that amendment No. 30 does not make a whole lot of sense without amendment No. 29, and I agree with that. On its own, amendment No. 30 does not fit with the rest of the Bill, although it would have gone alongside the other one. I understand the attraction for passenger transport authorities of including light rail in the provisions, but, given the way in which amendment No. 30 would sit with the rest of the Bill, we do not think that it is appropriate to pursue this matter.

The Minister sounds as though he is saying that he would have some sympathy with amendment No. 30 if it were put in the right context. Would he be prepared to consider this issue again in another place?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, because if that is the impression that I gave, it was entirely illusory. I was merely expressing sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley because amendments Nos. 29 and 30 sat together, and it was a shame that we could discuss only one and not the other. The two should have come as a package. I am grateful to my hon. Friend Mr. Clelland for allowing me the opportunity to clarify my position on that; I would not want to mislead him in any way.

Of the Government amendments at the end of this group, the main one is Government amendment No. 11, which is required to give Scottish Ministers certain powers in relation to rail services, networks and stations that are wholly in Scotland, as well as to certain cross-border services. As clause 44 is currently drafted, only the Secretary of State has those powers. The amendment adds the Scottish dimension in terms of giving the powers to Scottish Ministers. The other two Government amendments are consequential on the thrust of Government amendment No.11.

Much of our discussion has been on serious issues, and I would ask the House to reject the amendments, other than the Government amendments.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend Mr. Field and to John Thurso for their comments in support of new clause 1. I would simply say to Mr. Llwyd that the circumstances of the average railway passenger on a rural line in Wales are very different from the hustle and bustle involved in commuting into London. My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster and the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross raised the kind of pertinent questions that would have to be answered if there were a proper consultation process on any proposal to remove a first-class service.

The Minister resorted to the last desperate line of defence when he said that the problem was that the new clause did not define first-class passenger accommodation. I do not think that there is anyone in the House who does not understand what we mean by that term. To suggest that the new clause is defective because the term is not defined is absurd. The Minister also tried to argue that the withdrawal of first-class accommodation would affect fewer people and be less significant than the closure of a rural station or the withdrawal of a rarely used rural service. Again, I disagree with him, because I believe that the withdrawal of first-class accommodation could, in certain circumstances, affect much larger numbers of people. That is why any such proposals should be subject to consultation, as the new clause suggests.

What I found most worrying about the Minister's response was his suggestion that the new clause would impose constraints on the freedom of operators. He then conceded, however, that the whole system of the route utilisation strategy will be controlled from the centre by the Government. That in itself will inhibit the freedom of operators to decide what is the best mix of first and standard-class accommodation. So I remain suspicious about the Government's agenda, and the best way forward is to ensure that, if they pursue these proposals, they are forced to consult on them.

The hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong. That is not the function of the route utilisation strategy. Its function is to come up with strategies to use the route and eventually feed that into the franchise templates against which all operators will bid.

The Minister has done nothing to allay my concerns. He says that route utilisation strategies will feed into the specification that is used for the franchisees to bid against. I submit that, if one is a potential franchisee, and one does not bid against the specification laid down by the centre, one's chances of success in that franchise bidding are very small.

The only way to allay the increasing concerns of those who travel first class occasionally or frequently, particularly on main routes into London, is to ensure that they would be given proper notice and have the chance to express their views through consultation. I therefore hope that the House will support new clause 1.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 123, Noes 220.

Question accordingly negatived.