European Rail Market: EUC Report

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, the chairman of the committee, on this report and acknowledge the enormous amount of work she has been involved in in producing this significant document. Proof of the success of this work is the extent to which she has been backed by noble Lords from her committee who have made such telling contributions today. I shall refer to those in detail in a moment.

Ordinarily, these debates tend to revolve around the participation of committee members as they see the conclusion of their work and want to see the Government’s response. The distinguishing feature of this debate is that there also have been contributions from noble Lords who are not members of the committee but who have made significant points which I hope the Minister has taken on board. In my short contribution, I want to dwell on one or two of those points in order to clarify the issues for the Minister and, therefore, aid him in his response to the committee’s proposals.

If I have one criticism of the report, it is probably in its title. It looks more like a statement of aspiration than a potential achievement. The report identifies two things. The first is that completion is a long way away when we do not have full implementation of the first stage with regard to the Commission. Secondly, it concentrates on the specific British dimension of this work—the Channel Tunnel—and is far from satisfied with the present arrangements as regards that significant enterprise. Of course, we all engage with the committee in its broad objective. There is a huge advantage and benefit for the country if we can extend cross-border rail travel. In terms of travellers’ convenience and the broad environmental issues, we all know the potential advantages of rail over aircraft. That underpins the aspiration behind the report.

The Minister will recognise that committee members identified that the government response is somewhat lacklustre. It is particularly lacklustre on the most trenchant part of the committee’s report, in paragraph 136, which says:

“In the long-term, we support direct governance of the Channel Tunnel by the UK and French national regulators”.

That is the objective for our part of completing a dimension of our contribution to the single market. I should be grateful if the Minister would address himself to those points, although whether he accepts that the treaty of Canterbury can be revised in such a dramatic form is an interesting question.

What has been identified in the debate are the frustrations born of the existing structure for the Channel Tunnel, to which my noble friend Lord Faulkner referred, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, in mentioning the issue of access charges, and my noble friend Lord Berkeley with his particular expertise, in discussing the direct operations of the Channel Tunnel.

The other dimension also needs to be taken fully on board. It was my noble friend Lord Faulkner who dwelt most significantly on these matters. I refer to how limited the development of the single market is in so many countries in Europe, even those with railway systems that we all applaud. We should approach the European position with a little degree of modesty. After all, there are some excellent rail systems in Europe, and it is the case that the British system compares ill in some crucial aspects. On the one highly significant feature—the report demonstrates that the concern is about the customer—the passenger in Britain pays 30% higher fares than in many European rail systems. So we ought not to think that we can easily lecture other systems on improvement in circumstances where our own house is not entirely in order. It is very likely that we will be discussing these issues against the backdrop of ever-increasing fares in the British system.

There is one other dimension on which the Minister will need to tread with some degree of care. Of course, we all recognise the necessary emphasis in Britain on border controls to preserve the protection of the public, but it is also the case that the border controls at present work in such a way as to produce the maximum irksomeness for the average passenger without, from what one can see, very significantly enhancing the security dimension.

These are factors that should concern us. Tribute has already been paid to the noble Lord, Lord Roper, with regard to the European Union Committee over many years. From that work, we know that the reports of this House are taken seriously in Brussels. But on rail we will need to force the issue in a very sharp way indeed as it is clear that there is an awful backlog to catch up on. We must expect a more positive response from Europe, but that above all means that we must have government support and a government initiative that is clear on its objectives and determined to ensure that, even if we cannot complete the European rail market in the immediate future, we can take many more significant strides than we have done in recent years.