West Coast Main Line

Debate between Iain Stewart and Russell Brown

Monday 17th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Iain Stewart]

That is a fair question. When the Select Committee debated whether we should call Sir Richard Branson, Tim O'Toole and their colleagues, I made the point that we would not be able to probe them fully because we did not have access to the information because of the legal position. I would love to be able to go further, but we shine as much light as we can.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Iain Stewart]

I will give way one last time, but I must then make some progress.

[Mr Brown]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Obviously, the bids contain significant detail. As he and other hon. Members have indicated, we may never find out all of it. There are so many claims and counter-claims, and through the Select Committee and this debate we are looking for a clear indication from the Minister, without the detail, of whether every claim and counter-claim was carefully considered. Has he covered everything to ensure that the outcome is fair for the taxpayer?

[Iain Stewart]

Some of those questions are for the Minister to answer. I shall come in a moment to some reasons for my own conclusions about the two bids, but there is a caveat attached to what I say, because I do not have access to that information.

For the first half of the franchise period, up to eight to 10 years, the two bids are remarkably similar. There may be a higher premium payment from one than the other in a given year, but the lines on a graph are broadly consistent. They diverge only in the last period. The shorthand explanation is that FirstGroup believes it can continue to grow the market throughout the franchise, whereas Virgin believes that revenue growth and passenger numbers will tail off towards the end. The first bid is therefore more ambitious, and consequently riskier. What we must assess is whether that risk is acceptable. My conclusion is that it is within the bounds of acceptability.

My first reason for believing that is that population growth along the route is likely to be considerable over the 15 years. The Milton Keynes area has 25,000 housing permissions over the lifetime of the bid, and other towns and cities on the route have similar housing growth ambitions for that time. Feeder services into the main line will also be enhanced. The east-west rail link in my area will, I hope, open by 2017. One of its attractions is that it will build feeder services into the west coast, for people from Oxford or Bedford who might want to travel to stations in the north-west, or Scotland. That will drive demand on the line. Similarly, in the Manchester area, the northern hub will we hope attract more rail users on to the line and enable it to continue its ambitious growth, taking passengers away from the air route. For those reasons I believe there will be sustainable demand in the next 15 years.

The next question is whether the line can deliver the capacity to meet the demand. One of Virgin’s accusations was that by the end of the franchise First will have to fill every seat on every train every day to meet its premium payments. We need to examine the detail of what First proposes. It proposes more trains than the Virgin bid does. Both companies propose to buy new electric train sets for parts of the network. I understand that the difference is that First will augment the existing fleet. Virgin would replace the Voyagers with the new electric ones, whereas FirstGroup would keep the Voyager fleet and lengthen five-car trains into 10-car trains. First also wants to use more ambitious ticketing structures: a new class of travel between standard class and first class. It makes a point about capacity; the figure for the trains across the week is only 35%, whereas other franchises run at near 50%.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Iain Stewart and Russell Brown

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Iain Stewart]

Having been born and brought up in Hamilton, which is between Glasgow and Edinburgh, I am in something of a no man’s land on that point and wary of intruding on private grief. The hon. Gentleman’s point is an important one. The analysis should be not only among Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but among the regions and cities in each nation. I do not intend to press my amendment to a vote, but I would be grateful if the Minister could suggest some alternative working or make some statement.

[Mr Russell Brown]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Iain Stewart]

One very last time.

[Mr Brown]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. My intervening on him is causing disruption behind me. Will he look again at his amendment and explain exactly what it means? I am a little perturbed, and I know that he has mentioned sleeper trains and everything, but will he explain again exactly what it means?

[Iain Stewart]

My amendment is very simple and would remove any ambiguity. If a passenger were on a cross-border overnight journey, irrespective of when the border was crossed, they would be deemed to be in Scotland at the end of the day when that service departed. It may not be the most elegant or precise of solutions, but I felt that in the debate in Committee there was some ambiguity about the position, so the amendment is my attempt to clarify it.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Iain Stewart and Russell Brown

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Iain Stewart]

I am grateful for that information. Unfortunately I ceased to study physics after higher grade, so I am not qualified to go down that route.

The example I cite is perhaps slightly silly but there is a sensible point. It illustrates the practical difficulties that would arise if we had different time zones in a small geographical area. Although I am at one with the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar in opposing the introduction of central European time or any other Europeanisation of our time in this country, I must reluctantly oppose the new clause. I urge him and other Opposition Members to continue to oppose any moves in this place to introduce such a time zone in Scotland or anywhere else in the United Kingdom.

[Mr Russell Brown]

I will be brief. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) mentioned something that is not a pastime of every Scot, despite what some people might think. It relates to drinking hours and what would happen if we operated in two different time zones.

I think back to many years ago when the pubs in Scotland used to close at 10 pm, whereas in Carlisle and in Cumbria, on the border, they closed at 11. We saw people walking down the road at 10 o’clock closing in Scotland and heading for the first hotel to partake of their pastime in Cumbria, so the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) needs to be very careful.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Iain Stewart and Russell Brown

Monday 14th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Iain Stewart]

Not that Mr Hague—this one is spelt Haig. I think the Foreign Secretary is rather preoccupied with matters elsewhere in the world.

My Mr Haig said, of the First Minister’s comments about free tertiary education in his interview on the Andrew Marr programme yesterday:

“What is it the Scots go without that we the English enjoy? More and more people I speak to are seething with this unfairness, especially in the current financial climate. How is it the Scots can afford this, and the English cannot? They even have an extra layer of government, and are able to afford that as well. Mr Stewart, English nationalism is going to rise slowly but surely over this. Your government cannot ignore this, otherwise you are going to create a fracture in the union, and the SNP’s most ardent supporters for independence are going to be the English.”

I agree. I am a Unionist and I want the Union to survive. The hon. Members for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) and for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) might support our doing nothing to increase support for their ultimate aim, but I do not.

[Mr Russell Brown]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman responds to his constituent by making him fully aware of what the Scottish block grant is. If the Administration in Edinburgh decide to spend money in one fashion, there is no extra funding for it north of the border. In paying for one thing, we are sacrificing something else. Could that be a starting point for the hon. Gentleman?

[Iain Stewart]

I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman says, but if the Scottish Parliament were responsible for raising more of its revenue, such arguments would diminish. I think it is right to give it the flexibility to raise additional revenue, if it so wishes, to fund extra programmes in Scotland from which my constituents south of the border may not benefit.

I agree with the incremental steps proposed in clause 24. We are for the first time starting to disaggregate the unitary tax system in the United Kingdom. That will have many consequences, some of which will be unforeseen, so we need to proceed with great care and attention to detail. I strongly welcome the proposal that we should not rush to set up a completely new system in one go. In particular, proposed new section 80B, which clause 24 introduces, contains a provision to allow the subsequent devolution of additional tax powers. That is the right way to go, rather than trying to devolve too much at this stage.

The hon. Member for Dundee East raised perfectly valid points about devolving other taxes, including air passenger duty, fuel duty and corporation tax, and we might well come around to doing that in the fullness of time. The Scottish Parliament’s response to the Bill noted that

“international experience does show some scope for differentiation of corporation tax,”

and we may get to that point. However, there are huge difficulties and intricacies that we must first consider about the operation of corporation tax. A later clause goes into some detail in defining a Scottish taxpayer for the purposes of the Bill and we would have to do something very similar for corporation tax. If a company were primarily located in Scotland but had its tax headquarters elsewhere, we would have to work out exactly which components of its income were liable for corporation tax.