Transport

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw]

My Lords, we have had a wide-ranging debate tonight. I do not envy the noble Earl who has to sum up in a few minutes’ time. He has been shot at from all directions. I first make a suggestion to him. There is probably the scope for immediate cost reductions in the way we run our railway. There has been an offer from ATOC—the Association of Train Operating Companies—and, I believe, the roscos which hire the rolling stock, to be allowed to make some suggestions on how money might be saved. There is such a thing as the service level commitment, which makes franchises run certain trains which must stop at certain stations. In these times, when we are searching for economies, the opportunity should be taken to allow the professionals in the industry to put forward suggestions on how money can be saved. I assure him that a lot of money is involved and that it would be worthwhile doing this.

I am sympathetic to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, on the Equality Act. I raised this issue when the Act was going through your Lordships' House and was told that the House of Commons was dealing with it. However, it did not deal with it and the issue remains a very serious threat to British flagged shipping. If the regulations are carried out, our merchant fleet would be greatly diminished. However, I cannot share his sympathy for the Greek shipping magnates who found New York a less comfortable place. I wonder whether they find Athens any better at present.

I am pleased to hear that there will be an effort to make foreign lorries pay for using our roads. I am anxious to see some sort of lorry charging scheme introduced because, apart from anything else, it would be a way of managing the use of our roads. If we are not going to build any new roads, we must better manage those we have.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, referred to the next generation of propulsion for heavy lorries. Although we can look forward to electric cars, I do not think that the prospect of electric lorries is very near, certainly not at the weights proposed. The need to expand the rail freight network and the rail terminals is urgent.

I was rather interested in the renaissance of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, who managed to contain much of his criticism when he sat on the government Benches but now seems to believe that he can open fire with all barrels at the coalition, which has existed only for a very short time. Much of what he said comprised speculation about what might happen, not a response to announced policies.

I shall be a little controversial now and talk about the bus industry, which is in a parlous financial state. It is burdened by the concessionary fare scheme, which was introduced by the previous Government without the necessary funding. I believe that the Treasury intends to cut the bus service operators’ grant, which used to be known as fuel duty rebate. If the Government do not have enough money, it may be necessary to make a small charge for concessionary fares. If local authorities and the bus industry do not have the money, the ironic situation will arise in many shire counties whereby people may have a free bus pass but there will not be any buses on which to use it. Thought needs to be given to that.

Like other noble Lords such as the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, I welcome the North report, which is expertly argued. I look forward to hearing the Government’s intentions with regard to implementing the random tests and the new blood-alcohol level tests.

I noted what was said about phasing out speed cameras. However, one of the greatest problems is people who drive without insurance. While they are not necessarily picked up on a speed camera—although they might be—the automatic number plate recognition vehicles are very good at picking out uninsured and unlicensed vehicles. I should have thought that most law-abiding citizens and law-abiding motorists would welcome further use of those to remove from the roads people who are not paying their share.

I believe that the best hope for new investment in the railways is reform of the franchise process. The noble Earl will no doubt have seen the article in the Times this morning in which Virgin Rail says what it would do if its franchise were extended, and no doubt it would do so. But I take what it says there as the first instalment of what we should expect from it. It has done pretty well out of the current franchise and we should expect passengers on that railway to be amply rewarded for any extension given. The Minister with responsibility for railways made a Statement in the other place on 17 June, inviting comments on the reform of franchising. I hope the noble Earl will make sure that copies are available in the Library of this House so that people here also can comment.

My noble friend Lord Dykes referred to cheaper European standards for railways and light rapid transit. This is a very serious issue. When we say that it is cheaper on the continent, we mean that it is half price or less on the continent. It is not a small gap. The Government should investigate carefully why the costs here are higher because we need to know the answer.

My next point is the serious issue of railway and bus fares. Talking as an economist, I would point out that the elasticity of demand for railway and bus travel used to be 6 or 7 per cent, so that if you increased fares by 10 per cent, you lost 6 or 7 per cent of the passengers but you were better off. The latest research, to which I direct the noble Earl’s attention, shows that the current figure is nearer to 13 per cent. So if you increase fares by 10 per cent, you will lose 13 per cent of your passengers and you will be worse off—fewer people will be travelling and more will be diverted to the roads. This is an extremely serious issue and proper attention needs to be directed to it before any snap decisions to increase rail fares are made.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, I am concerned about the whole question of appraising transport projects. At the moment, this is done by an exceedingly complicated econometric process which employs large numbers of staff in the department, and by consultants who get most of the work. Work is also done at the local government level. I trained as an economist, but, at about the third or fourth page of such appraisals, there were so many Greek symbols and equations that I could not understand what they were saying. I am sorry, but any system of appraisal that is too complicated for the average person to understand is probably past its sell-by date. We need something new.

I support the noble Lord, Lord Snape, in saying that the sooner Merseyrail is transferred away from Network Rail and the sooner it can maintain its own network, the better it will be. That will allow cost comparisons, perhaps not between the costs on Merseyrail and elsewhere but between what Network Rail quoted for doing the work in Merseyside and what it would cost Merseyrail to do the work itself. There is no safety implication because Merseyrail is run by Serco and NedRailways, both of which are very respectable and unlikely to let standards drop.

There was an article yesterday in the Independent on Sunday about the successor to Iain Coucher, stating that Network Rail had engaged head hunters to scour the place for international big hitters to come in. Perhaps I may suggest to the Minister that we have probably had enough of international big hitters. If I could choose, I would go for someone who had successfully run a train operating company and experienced the obduracy and total incompetence of parts of Network Rail, and he could go in and put these things right. This is a time for imagination—picking someone who can do the job rather than someone who appeals to the City, although I should think that that does not matter much bearing in mind that Network Rail does not have any shares anyway.

I endorse the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, about the signalling system on the Cambrian line. It might seem a minor point, but Network Rail has spent £90 million developing the scheme, which does not work—and it proposes to spend more. Occasionally you have to say, “Enough is enough, we are not going to be pioneers in this technology but followers when other railways elsewhere have ironed out the bugs from the system”.

Electrification is an extremely important thing. I say to the noble Earl, for goodness’ sake get the priorities right—electrify those parts of the railway that give the quickest return for cash flow. Here I speak against my own railway, the Great Western. I would not spend money there because it is so long before you get any return. However, if you electrified the Midland main line north of Bedford, you would get immediate returns—and as you move north to Leicester, Sheffield, Leeds and Derby, more cash would come in and the scheme would quickly be self-financing. We must remember that the diesel trains on the route are capable of being fitted to pick up electric current, because they have diesel-electric engines.

I will finish with two points. First, I bring to the noble Earl’s attention the fact that railways can be a significant growth engine. Most noble Lords will remember what Iain Duncan Smith said last week about people living in houses where they had security of tenure, but who had never worked. He talked about moving those people somewhere where there was work. I draw the attention of the House to three examples: the line from Alloa to Stirling, the line from Falmouth to Truro, and the Ebbw Vale railway. Each has caused a large increase in the use of the railway, much of it by the sons and daughters of the people who live in houses, who have taken to commuting to Cardiff, Edinburgh or places like that. The Ebbw Vale work was done by local government in Wales, because Network Rail not only quoted a much higher price, but said that it could not do it anyway, which was hardly encouraging.

Lastly, the noble Earl referred to the continuing support for Crossrail. It is very important that we continue with Crossrail and Thameslink. It is important that the problems with Thameslink at London Bridge are sorted out—and whatever we do in the way of economies, we should not economise on the central sections of those lines. We should provide full-length platforms so that, as demand grows, we will be able to provide the most comprehensive service. I hope those few points will give the noble Earl something to think about.