Former MP for Bradford South
The Minister introduced the order by saying that it was a traditional method of assessing rates. I am familiar with the system of assessing rates because, unlike him, I have been a director of a private railway company and I was the chairman of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway Preservation Society. It was one of the pioneering railway preservation societies, it was formed in 1962 and it...
May I finish the point? The Leeds to Bradford and Airedale branch line has just been provided with new fencing and new bridge parapets for protection, because the 25 kV overhead electrification has been installed and, no doubt, some of the track work has been improved. I should have thought that that would reflect a higher charge. The Minister may regard that as extremely inconvenient, but...
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, but the truth is that we simply do not know. The opaqueness of the explanatory note for the order is not exceptional. Government Departments have a certain style—and the orders are always signed by Ministers; it is they, not civil servants, who take the responsibility. Departments seem to consider that one of their aims in life is to...
My hon. Friend is right. We have been battling to try to persuade the Government to incorporate expenditure on new rolling stock for the new electrified railway. In view of the massively increased administrative charges under privatisation and the difficulties that will occur in any event, the Government might have taken the expenditure into account in assessing the rateable values, and...
My hon. Friend is right. Unfortunately, the Minister for Public Transport mistakenly thought that Menwith Hill station, which is a spy listening station, was a British Rail station. I mention that by way of explanation in response to my hon. Friend's intervention, Madam Deputy Speaker. When the Minister asked British Rail where the station was it could not tell him, for the simple reason that...
Would it not have helped the users of the statutory instrument if what the Minister is saying had been set out in the explanatory note? It would have shown that he had some confidence in his assertion and it would have helped the users. The explanatory note is brief to the point of obscurity. As the order will apply to a new organisation in a supposed new era which, I am sure my hon. Friend...
Does my hon. Friend think that the lateness of the order may be due to the fact that Railtrack plc in its embryonic non-trading stage will have had to take into account the payments in the order before deciding what sort of charges it will levy to franchisees? Does my hon. Friend agree that the recent announcement about the charges by Railtrack plc, which are much more enhanced than...
Does my hon. Friend not agree that the order is entirely inadequate? The legislation was originally designed for a national network, but British Rail is to be broken down into a series of separate operating entities. Therefore, there will, of necessity, have to be a breakdown in the charge for rateable valuation in the order. The public at large will have no knowledge—the order provides no...
