'The Secretary of State shall publish annually a Rail Efficiency Report containing his assessment of the performance and cost effectiveness of Network Rail during the twelve months previous and in particular he shall provide comparisons of such performance data with other comparable rail companies operating partly or wholly in the European Union.'

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 discuss New clause 6—Redundant Assets Register—

'The Secretary of State shall every three years lay before each House of Parliament a register of all assets including land and property owned by Network Rail which are redundant to railway use or which have not been used for railway purposes during the preceding eighteen months together with a statement of intent regarding their future use or disposal.'.

The Standing Committee debates on this Bill were very constructive, and genuine concerns were raised by hon. Members from all parties. It is in that spirit of constructive debate that I wish to speak to these new clauses.

The new clauses are reasonable, moderate and fair, and I hope that the Minister of State will respond positively to them. New clause 5 would require the Secretary of State to publish an annual rail efficiency report containing his assessment of the performance and cost effectiveness of Network Rail in the previous 12 months. In particular, it would encourage him to provide comparative data in respect of those rail companies operating wholly or in part in the EU.

The suggestion is not impractical. The Minister will know—as will many Conservative Members—that the EU position on railway service reform has three stages. Perhaps predictably, they are called the first railway package, the second railway package and the third railway package.

The second railway package aims to create a legally and technically integrated European railway, and was adopted by the EU in April 2004. The third railway package sets out proposals to open up international passenger services to competition inside the EU by the year 2010. It is therefore entirely appropriate that we should, wherever possible, compare the performance of the UK rail network with that of our European counterparts.

When hon. Members raise concerns about our railway system, they often say how wonderful the railways in France are. I have never had the delight of travelling on a French train, but I should be delighted to be able to scrutinise our performance in this country to see how it compares with what happens in France. In that way, I could determine whether the claims made about the French railway are accurate or apocryphal. An annual rail efficiency report would therefore do a service to us all, and I hope that the Minister can respond positively to the suggestion.

New clause 6 would require a review of assets to take place every three years, covering all land and other property owned by Network Rail that is redundant to railway use or which has not been used for railway purposes in the preceding 18 months. The review would also contain a statement of intent regarding the future use or disposal of such assets.

On 5 March 2002, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Mr. Jamieson, responded to a question by stating that the Strategic Rail Authority had not carried out any evaluation of rail assets at that stage. In the past, there has been some criticism of the lack of information in respect of assets held by the rail network.

I am not necessarily critical of the fact that Network Rail might have some assets that are not currently in use and which are in a temporary limbo. It is justifiable for businesses to have certain assets that they may not use at present but which they may want to use in the future. It would be very short-sighted to force a company such as Network Rail to dispose of assets when it may have tentative plans to bring those assets into use in the future. New clause 6 would not do that: instead, it would require the Secretary of State to produce a list of the relevant assets, and a statement of intent that would tell us what would become of them.

I know that many assets have been realised over recent years, but many redundant assets remaining in Network Rail's asset base could be brought back into use or disposed of. I shall give the Minister an example. The main rail line from St. Pancras to the north has quite a lengthy stretch through Leicestershire that used to have four tracks. As a former regular user of that line, I was aware that two of those tracks were used exclusively for freight and two for passenger services. The reason for having four lines in that stretch was to allow the faster passenger trains to overtake the slower-moving goods vehicles.

The collapse in rail freight a couple of decades ago caused someone in authority to decide that that stretch of line should not have four tracks. As a result, two of the tracks were taken up, but the track bed remains, and the people who manage these assets should be forced to decide whether they will be brought back into use in the future, or whether they should be realised and sold. The benefit of selling an asset that is for the moment dormant is that money is released for other railway purposes.

Both new clauses are reasonable, and the history of our railway network shows why there are surplus assets in many parts of the country that Network Rail could sell. The Stockton to Darlington railway opened in 1821, thus beginning 100 years in which the private sector raised capital for investment. It was a period of strong competition, which caused the original railway companies to lay tracks and purchase assets around the country. Some of those assets are still retained in railway ownership.

We are in a different ball game now. It is right that Network Rail should be forced to justify the assets that it still has, and to indicate whether they will be brought back into use or whether they could be made available for sale.

Both new clauses would place a duty on the Secretary of State to publish information or reports. However, they are relatively narrow, in that they concentrate on the financial side of his responsibilities.

New clause 5 deals with rail efficiency and the performance of Network Rail. In passing, a minor criticism is that it does not go far enough. By concentrating on Network Rail, it leaves out a large part of the rail system—the train operating companies, the ROSCOs—rolling stock companies—and so on.

New clause 6 relates specifically to a register of assets. I have no difficulty in supporting the new clauses, because they point the way to one of the deficiencies in the Bill. As the Minister knows, I support the Bill and the principle that the SRA should be abolished, because it is right for the Government to take strategic responsibility for the railway. However, under the present arrangements, the SRA is under a duty to report on the matters mentioned in the new clauses and on a range of other matters. That report is made available to us. In the transfer of duties from the SRA to the Secretary of State, the duty to report has been lost, and the new clauses are intended to restore it.

I am sorry that new clause 4, which I tabled, did not find favour with Mr. Speaker, because it would have fully addressed the requirement to publish the strategy and to report on progress on it. That may be something for the other place to consider.

New clauses 5 and 6 are requests for the publication of information and my colleagues and I are happy to support them. However, I wish that they contained an additional requirement to publish the strategy. The travelling public, as I said on Second Reading, need to see where they are going in the long term and what mileposts should be met along the route.

I support my right hon. Friend Mr. Knight and new clause 5, which calls for the publication of annual rail efficiency report by Network Rail. I should probably declare a small personal interest at this point, inasmuch as the chairman of Network Rail, Mr. Ian McAllister, is a constituent of mine, and I have written to him on the issue that I wish to raise this afternoon.

I wish to back the suggestion for a specific efficiency report, because a good number of my constituents are commuters. Many of them work in the City of London and travel into Liverpool Street station each morning. The efficiency of Network Rail is of considerable importance to them, not least because there are now important capacity issues on the Liverpool Street line. Network Rail, and Railtrack before it, has undertaken work to upgrade the line, both in terms of signalling improvements and initiatives such as lengthening some of the platforms at stations to facilitate the operation of 12-carriage trains, which are obviously more efficient. We also now have the combined franchise, operated by the 'one' group, which has led to some improvement in the co-ordination of services in and out of Liverpool Street, although the new timetable is taking a while to settle down.

Important physical constraints must be faced, however, including a narrow entrance, or neck, in and out of Liverpool Street station, so that it is comparatively difficult to run many more trains in and out, especially during the morning and evening peaks. Incidentally, if we are to see much expansion in house building in the Thames gateway area, that restriction will be an increasing problem, because at least some of the people who will live in those houses will want to commute into London. Ministers will have to be conscious of that.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the potential for increased capacity at Fenchurch Street station—used by the constituents of other south Essex Members, if not by his, to come into central London— is also limited. I therefore recognise the issues that he raises about the potentially large increase in housing capacity in the Thames gateway region.

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I commuted into Fenchurch Street for some eight years, so I am familiar with that station. It, too, has a very narrow neck. It will be therefore a serious challenge to bring in additional trains from the east of London, because only so many trains will physically fit into so much space. Ministers will have to consider that situation seriously, as will a future Conservative Government.

Speed restrictions still apply in some areas of the track at times, and further upgrade work—especially on some of the bridges, which can be particular choke points in terms of speed restrictions—would probably prove cost-effective in helping the trains to run more smoothly and efficiently. In addition, if we are to have an annual report specifically about efficiency, one area that it should cover is time lost to engineering works, especially when scheduled engineering works take place over a weekend but overrun into Monday morning. The track is opened again later than scheduled, so services during the Monday morning peak are disrupted. I have experienced that myself on several occasions in the past year when travelling to the House.

In a letter I received from Network Rail in November, the company admitted that six such overruns had occurred in the previous nine months, including at least one occasion when the line could not be released until past 9 am, with predictable consequences for commuters struggling into work. Greater effort may be required from Network Rail to try to prevent what should be an avoidable problem that is largely under its own control. They are, after all, the company's works. If Network Rail were required to report on the matter specifically every year, in a way easily accessible to commuters, it might help to focus minds on the problem.

In fairness, I should say that Network Rail has already undertaken some initiatives to try to address the situation, so it is not as if it has ignored the difficulty or pretended that it does not exist. Nevertheless, the problem persists on occasions and greater effort needs to be applied to try to eradicate it. I am grateful for the opportunity to put those points on the record and I look forward to hearing the Minister's comments on the issues, which are of great interest to my constituents.

I shall start with a few points arising from the contribution by Mr. Francois. We fully accept and understand, as we have said repeatedly, that the railways—and other transport dimensions—need the infrastructure commensurate with the developments that are coming in the gateway, in north Kent and south Essex. Clearly, that will have a knock-on effect for assorted London terminals in the constituency of Mr. Field, such as Liverpool Street, which will have to be factored into the mix.

From the Kent perspective—I know that the hon. Member for Rayleigh could care less about that as an Essex Member—the channel tunnel rail link and other changes to the integrated Kent franchise will assist matters and, although they are meeting some resistance, they will redress the balance somewhat in terms of the numbers of trains going into Cannon Street, Fenchurch Street and St. Pancras. The changes are causing some disquiet among Kent commuters who have taken trains into Cannon Street for ever, and we will have to take into account how they will be affected.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned overruns. Engineering works need to be signed off only when it is safe to do so, and sometimes that means a couple of hours overrun with all the knock-on effects on the network. It is a fine balance, and Network Rail is getting better at it, but I cannot say that it will never happen again. In some cases, the safety considerations outweigh whatever delay and disruption may occur at that crucial time for commuters on a Monday morning. Safety must remain the key focal point.

In view of the cost implications of finding land in central London at Fenchurch Street station or Cannon Street, does the Minister think that we should have hubs in Finsbury Park, Stratford—which, in a sense, is already a hub—or the other side of London Bridge station, to provide larger capacity? Should we have new or enlarged stations outside the central zone stations that already exist? If so, is that the sort of initiative that should be replicated in other large cities, where the sheer cost and inconvenience of developing existing stations in the centre means that it is wise to consider areas in the suburbs for development?

I think the answer is yes to some extent, but clearly it is dependent, whether it is in central London or elsewhere, on the existing hub and network reality as well as the potential for developing things further. The hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members know that we are seeking to overcome precisely such difficulties at Birmingham New Street. There will be a reconfiguration, once the channel tunnel rail link is up and running by 2009, in terms of the balance between the King's Cross/St. Pancras complex and a number of the channel tunnel rail link stations in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. As and when Thameslink 2000 is taken forward—perhaps the 2000 should be in inverted commas; I do not know—much of the real work there that will have a profound impact particularly on the southern commuter lines will be around the viaducts and bridges of Borough and the throat into London Bridge, and that will have serious ramifications in terms of enhancing capacity and efficiency.

So a number of things can be done. Finsbury Park, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, is a mini-hub already and by the end of this work we shall have a very substantial hub at Stratford, with 10 or 11 lines going into it. If we are moving on to developments similar to those at Stratford, if there is an opportunity to make them transport hubs if they are close to but not in the centre—almost suburban but not quite; the hon. Gentleman will know what I mean—we should avail ourselves of that opportunity.

That leads me neatly to new clause 6 rather than new clause 5, and I will deal with both in detail after I have given way.

I thank the Minister for his courtesy in giving way. May I say for the record that even though I am an Essex MP I have considerable sympathy with Kent commuters because they face many of the problems as my constituents do commuting in from Essex? But on infrastructure, the Minister may be aware that the East of England regional assembly voted for increased housing targets in November 2004 and then effectively abrogated that plan in December 2004, specifically because of a lack of transport infrastructure to accommodate house building on that scale. To be fair to the Minister, he has shown some awareness of the problem, but we cannot stress enough how important addressing this is going to be.

To be honest, the assembly did not abrogate it; it simply looked again and did not go quite as far as it had earlier in terms of numbers. That is slightly different from a complete abrogation of what it passed in the first instance. But without getting too far off the point and the matters before us, there is a £200 million pot for the community infrastructure fund to take up smaller projects and schemes throughout the gateway and the other growth areas that we are progressing, and at the last count the currently committed spending just in the gateway in terms of transport infrastructure has been the best part of some £900 million—close to £1 billion; we have said time and again that of course the two must go together.

The point that I was going to end on in speaking about stations was that while I have sympathy with new clauses 5 and 6, for reasons that I shall explain I believe that both are unnecessary. But this point was raised at Second Reading and I do have some sympathy with it and am trying to pursue this more readily with Network Rail. It is not about its asset base; principally the land that it holds is operational rail land and not much more, and I shall return to that in detail. But there is an issue about what Network Rail can do in a proactive fashion around assorted termini to improve, and maybe enhance, passenger flow and so on by working far more readily than it has done thus far with the private sector, with the development industry, not only across the obvious London termini where there is clearly a commercial attraction but in other towns and cities too, and on a smaller level, to capture some sort of development gain. Network Rail has not been very good at that; I have told a constituent of the hon. Member for Rayleigh that to his face, so I am not talking out of turn. There is much more that can be done to turn our key termini far more readily into the transport interchanges and flourishing commercial ventures that they could be, perhaps far more so than they are now. I am exploring that and trying to move on with Network rail in that regard.

If I may, I shall "return to the clauses" but I am not sure that I had got to them yet. New clause 5 calls upon the Secretary of State to publish an annual assessment of the performance and efficiency of Network Rail in the form of a "rail efficiency report", with what the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire suggested about EU comparative data. The independent Office of Rail Regulation already carries out such an annual assessment, in the form of—I fully accept that it does not trip off the tongue as lightly as "rail efficiency report"—its annual statement on Network Rail's stewardship of the national rail network. It is a different label but it does capture, I would suggest, what the right hon. Gentleman is after. Its first such report covered primarily the year April 2003 to March 2004 and was published in November 2004. A rail efficiency report, I would contend, would therefore create unnecessary duplication.

The key function of the ORR is to monitor the performance and cost-effectiveness of Network Rail. The "Statement on Network Rail's Stewardship of the National Rail Network 2003–04" is an evaluation of the extent to which Network Rail met the stewardship requirements of its network licence, regulatory targets, and those targets identified in the business plan for April 2003 to March 2004. It covers all aspects of Network Rail's stewardship—expenditure, maintenance, renewal, enhancement, asset knowledge, operations, performance and monitoring. It consolidates the analysis carried out during the year by the regulator and allows Network Rail's customers, funders, members, users and other stakeholders to see how efficiently Network Rail is managing this important national asset. The Secretary of State will publish the ORR's second annual statement in autumn 2005.

I fully understand that in some ways that does not quite capture the reasons for the overruns and the reasons for the lack of efficiency, but they will be and are captured in other ways. As Minister with responsibility for rail, I have a meeting once a month with all the parties concerned, including Network Rail, just on performance of the various aspects of the rail industry, when those matters are explored further, but I do think this document does largely capture what the right hon. Gentleman rightly suggests should be in such an efficiency report. It sets out the regulatory calendar for the scrutiny of Network Rail's business plan and delivery against it. It includes an annual return, regulatory accounts and a quarterly statement, and the statement is presented as a balanced scorecard of high-level indicators that measure the extent to which Network Rail is achieving improvements and targets in a number of key areas of performance: safety, train performance, asset performance, activity volumes, finance, customer satisfaction and supplier satisfaction.

The views of consultees are sought on whether these indicators are the right ones, whether they need to be expanded to reflect Network Rail's broader responsibilities following the rail review, and the frequency with which they should be published. We are consulting on that now as we speak. Data comparing Network Rail's performance with that of rail companies operating partly or wholly within the European Union are currently not available. Whilst the European Commission would like to enhance benchmarking data, there is no prospect of any meaningful data becoming available for the foreseeable future, but I do take the right hon. Gentleman's point and we shall continue to look to the ORR, in carrying out its periodic reviews, to conduct research looking at benchmarking performance with other selected comparators that are appropriate comparators with other EU countries, to inform its assessment of Network Rail's performance and efficient gains. I understand that this was the approach taken in the last periodic review.

I think that overall, given especially the shift of emphasis in terms of ORR and what it can do should the Bill receive Royal Assent, that would be a more effective approach than simply having an efficiency report by the Secretary of State. I would say too that many of the things we are doing outside the Bill would lend themselves more readily to trying to capture that performance assessment at the local level. We are requiring Network Rail to work much more closely with train operating companies on a franchise-by-franchise, region-by-region basis. Invariably, that is through a key integrated control centre, where Network Rail, the train operating company, and the rolling stock company if necessary, all sit side by side to manage that part of the network more efficiently.

When the centres are up and running more readily—I think that the next to go on stream will be the East Anglian one based at Liverpool Street—proper communication and information flow will give us more realistic reasons why overruns occur. The hon. Member for Rayleigh and the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire suggested that all such information is available and I would not demur from that.

Although I understand the impetus behind new clause 6, which would provide for a triennial register of Network Rail's land and property assets that were redundant or had not been used for eighteen months, I am not sure that I would go along with it. Perhaps it would be helpful if I explained the background to the management and disposal of railway land. At the time of privatisation, the ownership of operational railway land was transferred to Railtrack, and subsequently Network Rail. The British Railways Board retained the non-operational land and buildings. That estate was transferred to BRB (Residuary) Ltd, a subsidiary of the Strategic Rail Authority, upon the SRA's establishment in 2001.

As part of the periodic review process, Network Rail is encouraged to maximise its income from all sources, including the redevelopment of its land and property, by exploiting appropriate disposal opportunities. However, a balance is needed to ensure that future rail development opportunities are not sacrificed for short-term financial gain through disposals. As everyone knows, Network Rail is regulated by the Office of Rail Regulation, and it must seek the ORR's consent before making arrangements for land disposal.

I do not know about the specific piece of two-track line in Leicestershire that used to be the four-track line to which the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire referred. If there is any possible reason why that might be four-tracked again in the future, I would rather that is was left as it is and protected than for anything else to happen to it. That does not mean that something is imminent for that specific stretch. I am simply saying that it is sometimes appropriate for land to be held for more than 18 months—the time cited in new clause 6—pending future development.

Of course I take the point that land which is redundant today might not be redundant tomorrow. Just before privatisation, a lot of land became redundant because of the inefficiency of the railways under nationalisation. Privatisation led to more demand, and although we now want the duelling of track throughout my constituency, we did not want that under nationalisation. However, surely that does not negate the value of reporting to the House about what is thought to be operationally viable in the future or redundant in the way envisaged by new clause 6. Why not keep the House of Commons informed?

I am not saying that the House of Commons or anyone else should not be informed, but the ORR and Network Rail have a relationship in the first instance through which they can consider what happens to land. Let me go into a bit more detail, although we can return to the matter if hon. Members wish.

Network Rail's forecast income from property was closely scrutinised by the ORR as part of the access charges review in 2003, precisely to ensure that Network Rail was maximising the revenue generating potential of its property portfolio. In the conclusions of the review, the ORR determined that Network Rail should earn £1.2 billion in property income over the five years from 1 April 2004, which was £50 million more than Network Rail had forecast. That is clearly a challenging target, but assets, buildings and other portfolios do not stand idle while people decide what to do with them, because they form part of Network Rail's overall budget. As has been said, it is clearly best for Network Rail to determine how best to manage its property portfolio from day to day to optimise revenue earned from that without compromising its core business of operating, maintaining and renewing the rail network. It would not be terribly appropriate for civil servants or politicians to get involved in that process.

The ORR thus already regulates and monitors the disposal of Network Rail's land and property. Network Rail's network licence includes a condition that was imposed by the rail regulator to prevent the disposal of land by Network Rail unless the ORR consents to such disposal. When reaching a decision, the ORR will consult various railway industry stakeholders for their views. Consent is likely to be refused if the land could be important to the continuing operation and further development of the network, as I said.

The purpose of the licence condition is to ensure that parts of the Network Rail property portfolio that might be required for the future development of the railway are retained for that purpose. If consent is given, which may be for an individual case or in accordance with a general consent covering specified categories of land, the decision on whether, when and how land should be disposed is a commercial one for Network Rail.

A balance must be struck between what the ORR reports about the previous disposal and utilisation of assets and the real commercial considerations of the ORR and Network Rail. Many of the suggestions made by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire are covered in one way or another by the relationship between the ORR and Network Rail. However, the arbitrary time frames in new clause 6 are not appropriate. When the post-SRA world settles down, I am more than happy to ensure that the right hon. Gentleman, his colleagues and anyone else who needs to know are aware of Network Rail's assets register, land holdings and the targets for the next periodic review. In that context, I would suggest that most of the concerns addressed by new clauses 5 and 6 either have been covered already, or are well on their way to being covered. Although I accept the substance of the right hon. Gentleman's points, I hope that he will withdraw the motion.

We have had a worthwhile debate. John Thurso criticised what he described as the narrow drafting of the new clauses, but accepted the thrust of the argument behind them. I suppose it was a case of praising with faint damns, but I thank him for his qualified support.

My hon. Friend Mr. Francois drew the House's attention to specific problems occurring in his part of the country, and I am sure that the Minister will reflect on his comments. My hon. Friend made a telling point when he said that bridges on some parts of the network are choke points. They are indeed a big problem on a large part of the network, and in many cases they prevent the network from being opened up to increased freight business. If redundant assets could be sold to fund bridge replacement work, both passengers and freight customers would benefit.

We take the Minister's point about retaining—where appropriate—currently unused railway land if there are plans to bring it into use in future. We accept that, of course, but it was not part of the aim we sought to achieve through new clause 6. I was delighted to hear that the hon. Gentleman accepts that Network Rail could do more and be more proactive about enhancing passenger flow. We give him two cheers for clearly acknowledging that more could be done. I hope that as long as he is a Transport Minister, he will stay on the case and ensure that Network Rail is indeed more active in improving the quality of travel for passengers. In the light of his response and of the fact that the Minister acknowledges that there is a problem, I shall not pursue new clause 6 any further.

I was less convinced by the Minister's response to new clause 5. There is a case for saying that as long as the railways remain under the wing of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State should be answerable to the House and should have a duty to publish a rail efficiency report—if only to focus his mind and ours on the fact that more could and should be done to improve rail efficiency. Although I thank the Minister for his comprehensive response, I still have some doubts regarding new clause 5, and when in doubt one should always take the mood of the House.

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

The House divided: Ayes 129, Noes 222.

Question accordingly negatived.