Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman makes two good points. First, the fare system is incredibly complex and, secondly, passengers face high fare levels—we fully appreciate that. The only way in which we can tackle high fare levels is to make the railway more efficient. We are determined to do so, and we will receive and publish shortly the report by Sir Roy McNulty on value for money on the railways, which will make proposals to achieve that objective.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I am glad that the issue of fares has come up, because on 9 March the Secretary of State attended a presentation on the findings of the rail value-for-money review, which he will publish later this month. I have a leaked copy, which includes a recommendation that in future rail franchises should have

“more freedom to set fares”.

Does he stand by what he told the House on 27 January, when he said that the objective of the review was

“to reduce the burden on both the taxpayer and the fare payer”?—[Official Report, 27 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 426.]

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, absolutely—that is the key objective of the McNulty review. The hon. Lady will know, if she wants to look at this objectively, that we have severe crunch-points on our rail system, where the current pattern of fares is driving perverse behaviour. The 18.59 train north from Euston on a Friday evening is virtually empty, but the 19.01 train is packed, with people standing, and the police preventing others from joining the train for safety reasons, and that is because of the way in which the fare structure works. We must be able to use the pattern of fares to address crowding, and to avoid the perverse incentives that have been created.

[Maria Eagle]

Can the Secretary of State explain some quotes in the document that suggest that he will allow franchisees to do what they want with fares? For example, the document states that he needs

“to consider in letting future franchises: more freedom to set fares”

and should

“encourage TOCs to take a more commercial approach to fare setting”.

There are other such quotes in the document, which seems to suggest that he will allow train operating companies to charge whatever they want.

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady is confusing herself. The document from which she has quoted is, I think, Sir Roy McNulty’s presentation to the seminar to which she referred. It is not a Government document.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that the series of strikes is highly irresponsible. As I said last night, no one in the Government is spoiling for a fight with the unions, but the unions appear to be spoiling for a fight with London. I say to the RMT and other unions that that sort of irresponsible strike action, when an alternative, proper remedy—an ongoing employment tribunal—is available, only strengthens the hand of those, including the Mayor, who call for tougher industrial relations laws.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

As the Secretary of State will know, today marks the closing of the consultation on his plans to axe more than half the UK’s coastguard stations, leaving just three offering 24-hour cover. Yet, in a letter to me this week, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency stated that the consultation,

“will be reopened in the Summer”.

Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the consultation closes today, as the letter says, “for the first time”? Given that it is increasingly clear that the policy is a shambles, why does he not just abandon the ill-thought-through proposals, which will leave our coastline a more dangerous place?

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Villiers]

I will certainly expect Network Rail to do all it can to minimise the disruption caused for passengers by the works under way on Thameslink and forthcoming works at major London termini. I will keep my hon. Friend’s proposal in mind, and I am happy to discuss it with Network Rail. I believe that he and I are meeting to discuss this soon.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Will the Minister of State rule out breaking up our national rail infrastructure and handing those vital assets to the private sector, creating in the south-east and across the country what has been described as a series of mini-Railtracks?

[Mrs Villiers]

The hon. Lady knows perfectly well that this Government have shown a major commitment to investment in our railways, but we expect the rail industry to rise to the challenge of reducing costs, which spiralled under her Government. For the sake of taxpayers and fare payers, the cost of running the railways needs to come down. We expect Sir Roy McNulty to come up with workable proposals for delivering that essential goal.

[Maria Eagle]

The whole House will have heard the Minister refuse to rule out a return to the days of Railtrack, with private profit, not safety in the interests of passengers, coming first. She is in danger of repeating the shambles of rail privatisation, so will she urge her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to think again, step back from this ideologically driven plan to fracture our rail industry further, and abandon this recipe for disaster?

[Mrs Villiers]

The hon. Lady was a member of the Government who established the McNulty review to find out the answers to the very questions that she is asking, yet she wants me to rule out a range of options before Sir Roy McNulty has had a chance to report. This is a review that the Labour Government set up, and I think it makes sense to wait for Sir Roy’s report before making a decision.

Intercity Express and Rail Electrification

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a statement on the Government’s plans for extension of the electrification of the Great Western main line and for the procurement of a replacement for the existing diesel inter-city trains. The two issues are closely connected. First, I shall address the provision of a new generation of inter-city 125 mph trains to take advantage of the electrification of the Great Western main line and to allow the phasing out of most of the ageing diesel InterCity 125s.

In February 2009, the intercity express programme, launched by the previous Government, identified Agility Trains, a consortium of Hitachi Rail and John Laing plc, as the preferred bidder to provide a new fleet of inter-city trains. Subsequently, the previous Government placed the process on hold and ordered a review of the procurement by Sir Andrew Foster. Last summer, recognising the fiscal challenges that the UK faces and the impact of the new Government’s plans for high-speed rail to Leeds and Manchester, Agility put forward an improved, lower-cost proposal to provide the required service through a mixed IEP fleet with some all-electric trains and some with a combination of electric and diesel power, allowing it to operate through services beyond the electrified railway. The proposal retained the more modern electric InterCity 225s on the east coast main line, as the previous Administration had proposed.

We have reviewed the proposal against the alternative of an all-electric fleet, with purpose-built diesel locomotives coupled to trains to haul them beyond the electrified railway. Either way, it would represent a multi-billion pound investment for this country, underpinning the operation of inter-city services on the conventional railway for many years to come, and it is imperative that the right choice be made.

As I said at the time of my statement to the House on 25 November, there were complex legal, technical and commercial issues to be addressed and both the Government and Agility Trains, as preferred bidder, recognised that. Over the past few months, we have worked together on these issues and I can now announce that I am resuming the IEP procurement and proceeding with the proposal that Agility Trains has put forward as preferred bidder. We will now work with Agility Trains with a view to reaching financial close by the end of this year. That is, of course, subject to the Government’s continuing to be satisfied that the proposal offers value for money as the commercial negotiations are concluded and that the final arrangements are compliant with the United Kingdom’s European Union obligations. This deal will allow us to provide better, faster, more comfortable services and to continue providing through journeys between London and parts of the rail network that are not electrified. In total, there will be over 11,000 more peak-time seats each day on the Great Western main line and the east coast main line post-IEP compared with today.

Hitachi is today confirming its plans to locate its European train manufacturing and assembly centre at Newton Aycliffe in County Durham. That investment is expected to create at least 500 direct permanent jobs, as well as hundreds of temporary construction jobs. Thousands more job opportunities will be created in the UK manufacturing and service supply chains. Coming just days after the news of the reopening of the Redcar steelworks, this is a massive and very welcome shot in the arm for the skilled work forces of the north-east’s industrial heartland.

I turn now to the related issue of electrification of the Great Western main line. I announced to the House on 25 November that, over the next six years, Network Rail will electrify the commuter services on the Great Western main line from London to Didcot, Oxford and Newbury. I recognise that this announcement, although welcomed in the Thames valley, left unanswered the clear aspirations of rail users further west for the extension of electrification to Bristol and into Wales. I and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales have subsequently considered the options for extending electrification, alongside the Government’s consideration of the proposals for replacement of the current diesel InterCity trains, and in close consultation with the Welsh Assembly Government.

We have concluded that there is a case for extending electrification westwards to Bristol and Cardiff, and I am today asking Network Rail to add that major extension to its electrification programme immediately. This is good news for Wales and the south-west against a backdrop of public spending constraint as we deal with the legacy of debt that we inherited. Bringing electrification to Cardiff will mean that we are linking, for the first time, the capital cities of England, Scotland and Wales by electrified rail. These measures will deliver a London to Cardiff journey time of 1 hour and 42 minutes and will shave 22 minutes off the London to Bristol journey.

I have received representations calling for the electrification of the Great Western main line to be extended as far west as Swansea and we have looked carefully at the arguments. The business case for electrification is heavily dependent on the frequency of service. Services between London and Swansea currently operate at a frequency of only one train an hour off-peak. There is no evidence of a pattern of demand that would be likely to lead imminently to an increase in this frequency. Consequently, I regret to have to say that there is not, at present, a viable business case for electrification of the main line between Cardiff and Swansea.

However, because of the decision to proceed with Agility’s proposal for a bi-mode train, journey times from London to Swansea will be shortened to 2 hours and 39 minutes—20 minutes faster than today—with trains switching automatically to diesel power as they leave Cardiff. As the constraining factor on the south Wales main line is speed limitations dictated by the geometry of the line, there would be no time-saving benefits from electrifying the line from Cardiff to Swansea. However, the policy of the Government is to support a progressive electrification of the rail network in England and Wales, for environmental reasons among others. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I will therefore keep under active review the business case for future electrification of the Great Western main line between Cardiff and Swansea in the light of developing future service patterns.

I have a further announcement to make to the House. In the course of the examination of the case for electrification in south Wales that I and my right hon. Friend have undertaken, we have established, at an initial high level, that there appears to be a good case for electrifying the key valley commuter lines north of Cardiff via Pontypridd and Caerphilly to Treherbert, Aberdare, Merthyr Tydfil, Coryton and Rhymney, as well as the lines to Penarth and Barry Island to the west. My Department will therefore work with the Welsh Assembly Government to develop a full business case for the electrification of the Cardiff valley lines during the next rail investment control period beginning in 2014. The Welsh Assembly Government will need, in parallel, to consider the case for specifying suitable electric trains for those routes when the Wales and Borders franchise is re-let in 2018. That would, of course, be a prerequisite for electrification proceeding, and the timetable for franchise re-letting and re-specification necessarily dictates the time scale of the proposed electrification.

On the basis of our preliminary evaluation, the valleys electrification represents the best value for money rail electrification investment that can be made in Wales. It promises to bring all the benefits of electric commuter trains—faster acceleration, greater comfort, cleaner and greener travel, and greater reliability—to rail users in south Wales. It would have a significant effect on the economy of Cardiff and the valleys by deepening labour markets, improving connectivity and significantly enhancing the attractiveness of the area to investors. Coupled with the electrification of the Great Western main line, it would represent a major boost to the economy of south Wales as a whole. These three decisions—on the intercity express programme, on Great Western main line electrification and on building the business case for electrification of the valleys commuter lines—represent a major further investment in UK rail infrastructure. They follow the announcements that I have already made on Crossrail, Thameslink, tube upgrades, Thames valley and north western electrification and additional rolling stock.

The decisions sit alongside the Government’s proposals for high-speed rail, the consultation on which I announced to the House in a written statement yesterday, as testimony to this Government’s commitment to investment in the future of Britain’s railways. They represent excellent news for passengers on the Great Western main line and the east coast main line, for commuters on the Cardiff valley lines and for the economies of south Wales and north-east England as a whole. I commend this statement to the House.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for the early sight of his statement—he actually sent me two statements, although they appear to be the same. I will begin by welcoming the much delayed green light that he has today given to the new intercity express programme, which was launched by Labour before the last election. That this programme is now to go ahead, with the significant boost for jobs that he referred to, is testament to the tenacity and tireless campaigning of my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson), The Northern Echo, the local community trade unions, particularly Unite, and the local work force. I congratulate them all on what has been an incredible triumph for their campaign.

Can the Secretary of State confirm when passengers will first be able to enjoy these new trains? Have the delays in making the announcement had any impact on the delivery date for the trains? Will he confirm whether he has made any other changes to the contract, for example to the number of trains or the cascading plan for the existing rolling stock, as a result of today’s announcement?

The Opposition obviously welcome the decision to go ahead with the electrification of a further stretch of the Great Western main line to Cardiff. It is the result of the commitment we made in government and also the efforts made since the Secretary of State’s last statement in November by my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), the First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, other MPs and Assembly Members, and the business community across south Wales. I am glad that the Secretary of State has listened to them about the vital need for modernisation, which will speed up the journey time between our capitals from 2 hours five minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes, which has to be welcome. It is a real boost to business, with the potential for investment and jobs, and to Wales.

However, does the Secretary of State understand the deep upset that will be felt by people in Swansea and across Wales at the St David’s day disappointment that the electrification will not continue as far as Swansea, as Labour had intended? He has broken his manifesto commitment to

“support the electrification of the Great Western line to South Wales.”

The Secretary of State for Wales, who I am glad to see is in her place, was pretty quiet yesterday when the Transport Secretary confirmed plans for a high-speed rail route through her constituency, which she previously said she could not support. The people of south Wales will expect her to be more vocal today in explaining why the Government have let down the people and businesses that are further south and west than Cardiff.

The Transport Secretary has just extolled the virtues of electrification, including, in his own words, its “significant effect on the economy of Cardiff and the valleys—deepening labour markets, improving connectivity and significantly enhancing the attractiveness of the area to investors.” Why cannot the people of Swansea, and of west Wales beyond Swansea, also have that advantage? Can he confirm when the electrification of the line to Cardiff will be completed, and why, as far as he is concerned, electrifying just 40 more miles of track to Swansea appears to be such a bad idea?

Is it not true that the case for electrification was previously approved by the Treasury? Anybody who has dealt with the Treasury, as we now all have, knows that the rate of return would have had to meet its tough criteria, so why does the right hon. Gentleman continue to suggest that there is no proper business case for electrification all the way to Swansea? Does he accept that, if Swansea is not a part of the single roll-out construction programme, the Government will incur 20% additional costs to stop construction and then take it up again? He is in fact saying that the stretch of line from Cardiff to Swansea will not be electrified at all—except by incurring unnecessarily high extra costs.

I welcome in the right hon. Gentleman’s statement the part about looking at further electrification in Wales on the valleys train lines, but he is holding out the promise of potentially producing a post-dated cheque at a later date, because there is no funding available in this spending review period. He says that he has made a decision about the matter, but his only decision has been to look at whether there is a business case, so there is no guarantee of his carrying out the project. Perhaps he is trying to deflect attention from the fact that he is failing to meet his manifesto commitment to take electrification all the way to Swansea.

Will the right hon. Gentleman update the House on where his Department is with the procurement of the 1,200 new carriages for Thameslink? We still have not heard about that major project, in which many UK jobs are at stake, and it would be good if we did not have to put up with Thameslink being hit by the same delays that have beset the IEP project. Does he have an updated time scale for when the new Thameslink and Crossrail trains will benefit passengers by actually being in service? Will he explain what impact the delay will have on the plans for cascading the existing rolling stock?

Why, when the right hon. Gentleman must have known that he was making a statement today, did he choose yesterday to slip out by written answer—without informing the media or the House—a decision to end all funding for local rail schemes that local authorities and integrated transport authorities develop? His decision means that no new schemes will be able to go ahead between now and April 2015. Can he explain why that decision was not made in the comprehensive spending review, and why he put it out yesterday under cover of his publication of the high-speed rail consultation?

As I have made clear, I welcome today’s confirmation of the investment in the rail network that Labour planned and announced when in government. The additional electrification and the major project to replace our outdated inter-city fleet will significantly improve the passenger experience on our rail network and bring economic benefits to the country. However, the unnecessary delays in bringing forward those plans, and the decision to bring disappointment to south Wales on St David’s day, are just further evidence of the dither and delay that seems to grip the right hon. Gentleman’s Department. Both of his announcements today imply more delay than the original plans. His third announcement on further electrification in Wales is another example of jam tomorrow but no money today, and no guarantee of progress. In the end, he will be judged on what he delivers, and Labour Members will be looking closely at that.

[Mr Hammond]

We have been treated to a classic rant. There are two types of people in this world: the glass-half-full brigade and the glass-half-empty brigade—and let us guess which one the hon. Lady belongs to. She is determined resolutely to find bad news even in a statement about massive investment at a time of constrained public spending.

The hon. Lady, apart from treating us to a read-out of her contacts book, which was fascinating, had the nerve to accuse us of unnecessary delays. I would like to remind her that it was the previous Administration who pulled the IEP procurement and asked Sir Andrew Foster to review it, reopening the issues. I can tell her today that trains will start to be delivered to the Great Western main line from 2016 and on to the east coast main line from 2018.

On the question of electrification, the hon. Lady mentioned the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain), the man who talks a good talk about electrification but was, if I remember rightly, Secretary of State for Wales in the previous Administration—an Administration who, in 13 years, did not manage to electrify a single inch of railway in the Principality. A couple of weeks ago, the hon. Lady, who is now so keen on electrification in Wales, was telling us that Labour had no commitment to electrification in Wales because it was conducting a spending review and everything was up for grabs. That was until the very same right hon. Member for Neath came along and slapped her down, and made her change her tune.

The hon. Lady talked about our manifesto commitment at the last general election. I can tell her—[Interruption.] I have it right here; I will quote it back to her in a minute if she wants. Our manifesto commitment at the last general election was to electrify the railway into south Wales. I know that she is not shadow Secretary of State for Wales, but even she should know that Cardiff is in south Wales. We have delivered today on the commitment that we made.

The hon. Lady made a plea for electrification to Swansea. I understand that people in Swansea will be disappointed by the announcement that I have made today because of the expectations that the previous Government raised without bothering to establish that there was a sound business case for the proposed expenditure. However, she has not, at any point, made a logical argument for the electrification that she pleads for. I have told her that the bi-mode trains that we are procuring will deliver a journey time saving of 20 minutes to Swansea—the same journey time saving that the previous Government were promising through electrification. We will deliver the benefits to the people of Swansea from electrification to Cardiff and continuing bi-mode train operation onward from Cardiff to Swansea. She asked me about the electrification to Cardiff. That will be completed in 2017.

On the valleys electrification, the hon. Lady says that there is no funding in the spending review. I am disappointed that she has not yet grasped the complexities of rail capital funding. Network Rail funds electrification through its regulated asset base. The investment programme is set in control periods, the next of which starts in 2014. What I have announced today is that we have established that there is, on the face of it, a strong business case for this investment in the valleys electrification. We will work it up with Network Rail and the Welsh Assembly Government, with a view to including it in the next investment programme period.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My right hon. Friend the Minister of State has published a consultation on franchising reform, in which she referred specifically to considering passenger satisfaction as one of the metrics. My hon. Friend will no doubt have been as delighted as I was to see the Passenger Focus survey this morning which shows that 84% of rail passengers are satisfied with the service that they receive on the railway.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s decision to continue the rail industry review that was started by the Labour Government. When Sir Roy McNulty publishes his final report in April, the Opposition will support any sensible proposals that take cost out of the industry without reducing the quality of service for passengers. However, does the Transport Secretary agree with me—and with some Conservative Back Benchers, from what I heard in earlier exchanges—that as the cost to the Government of running the railways comes down, the cost to the public of travelling by train should come down as well?

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her expression of support for Sir Roy McNulty’s review and I am happy to acknowledge that that process was set in train by my predecessor. I look forward to taking the review forward on a consensual basis. Of course, the objective of driving efficiency in the railway is to reduce the burden on both the taxpayer and the fare payer. I am glad that she recognises that the only realistic way to do that is to reduce the cost base.

[Maria Eagle]

In view of that, does the Secretary of State understand the anger felt by hard-pressed commuters up and down the country who are facing big fare hikes—record fare rises of over 30%—over the next three years, and often worse overcrowding on services that will not really improve over that period? The initial findings of Sir Roy’s review suggested that savings of £1 billion could be found without cutting services, so will the Secretary of State now commit to sharing the benefits of those savings with passengers, and rethink his plan to impose record fare rises?

[Mr Hammond]

Sir Roy McNulty’s suggestion that £1 billion a year could be found refers to 2017-18. It will take some time before we get to that level of achievement, but it must remain our aspiration. In the meantime, the hon. Lady has answered her own question. Overcrowding is a key issue, and if we are to address it we must continue to invest in additional rolling stock and infrastructure on our railways, as we have committed to do. I am afraid that means that the relief that passengers seek will not come in the next couple of years, although it will come.

Sustainable Transport

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a statement to accompany the publication today of the coalition Government’s White Paper on local transport, and the simultaneous publication of bidding guidance to accompany our new local sustainable transport fund. Both documents are available to colleagues in the Vote Office and have been placed in the Library of the House.

This Government’s vision is for a transport system that helps create growth in the economy, and tackles climate change by cutting our carbon emissions. The launch of the White Paper, and the associated local sustainable transport fund, represents a significant step towards meeting those two key Government objectives.

In both the Budget and the spending review, the Chancellor pledged to make the tough choices that will allow us to maintain investment in new and existing infrastructure to support a growing economy, while eliminating the structural deficit over the lifetime of the Parliament. The spending review reflected transport’s vital role in this. I am pleased that we were able to secure significant investment to allow us to go ahead with important transport initiatives. The investment we have committed to in rail, low-carbon vehicles and public and sustainable transport reflects the determination to secure growth while cutting carbon.

In the medium term, our transport decarbonisation strategy centres on the progressive electrification of the passenger car fleet, supported by policies to increase generation capacity and decarbonise the grid. By also prioritising spending on key rail projects such as high-speed rail and rail electrification, we will be providing travellers with attractive new options instead of the plane and the car.

In the immediate term, addressing shorter, local trips offers huge potential in helping to grow the economy and tackle climate change. Shorter trips are important— two thirds of all journeys are less than five miles. Walking, cycling and public transport are all real, greener alternatives for such trips. What is more, we know that people who travel to the shops on foot, by bicycle or by public transport can spend more per head than those who travel by car, and research shows that improvements to the public realm can increase turnover in the high street by 5% to 15%. Increased sustainable travel also helps tackle congestion, which is a drag on business causing excess delays in urban areas at a cost of around £11 billion per annum.

Let us not forget the further benefits that follow a shift to more sustainable transport—benefits to the air we breathe and to our levels of fitness, and the money in our pockets as well. Investment in sustainable transport helps make our towns and cities healthier and more attractive places to live, work and shop.

The White Paper sets out how we can encourage the uptake of more sustainable modes at local level, and the unprecedented £560 million we have allocated in our new local sustainable transport fund will support that. Our commitment to helping local authorities with this vital agenda is reaffirmed by the amount of money we are making available. The local sustainable transport fund forms part of a wider picture of more streamlined and simplified funding for local authorities. That will give local authorities more power and flexibility to meet local transport needs.

Across Government, we have demonstrated our commitment to ending top-down decision making and the tendency in Whitehall to develop one-size-fits-all solutions that ignore the specific needs and behaviour patterns of local communities. The Government have already taken significant steps to hand back power to local communities, including replacing regional development agencies with local enterprise partnerships, giving communities a much greater say over planning decisions and ending the top-down imposition of housing targets. Today’s White Paper is about extending the decentralisation of power to local transport and putting into context what that means for local authorities.

We are particularly keen to receive bids for the local sustainable transport fund from local authorities that are in partnership with the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, and that have the support of local businesses. We believe that by encouraging bids in this way, we will be able to capture innovative solutions to local transport needs in all areas—rural and urban. An example I often cite is the Cuckmere community bus in my constituency. Individual residents in Cuckmere valley have come together to run regular and frequent bus services that take people in rural areas to their nearest towns. The services are provided entirely by volunteers. Wheels to Work schemes provide transport to people who are unable to access training, employment or education due to a lack of suitable public or private transport. The schemes can therefore particularly benefit people living in isolated rural communities, and they can play an important role in helping people to come off benefits and regain their independence. Those real examples are happening right now, and we want to enable similar stories to unfold in other areas across the country.

In addition, we recognise that some initiatives benefit from a single national approach. They include the provision of £11 million of funding for Bikeability cycle training next year to allow 275,000 10 to 11-year-olds to benefit from on-road cycle training. There is a commitment to support Bikeability for the duration of the Parliament, which will allow as many children as possible to undertake high-quality cycle training.

We will also improve end-to-end journeys by encouraging transport operators, and those involved in promoting cycling and car clubs or sharing, to work together to provide better information and integrate tickets and timetables. We are delivering with operators and public sector bodies the infrastructure to enable most local public transport journeys to be undertaken using smart ticketing by December 2014. We will work with the transport industry to support the development of e-purses and other technology related to smart ticketing, and we will support the infrastructure to make that happen. The way in which transport investment decisions are made will be reviewed to ensure that the carbon implications are fully recognised. Responsibility for local roads classification will be transferred to local authorities to give them the flexibility to determine the status of their roads. We will also be setting out in a strategic framework for road safety by spring 2011 how to ensure that Britain’s roads remain the world’s safest. Traffic signs policy will be modernised to provide more flexibility and reduced costs and bureaucracy for local authorities to enable them to develop innovative traffic management solutions.

We want to build a transport system that is an engine for economic growth, and also one that is greener—one that creates growth and cuts carbon. By improving the links that move goods and people around, by encouraging people to travel sustainably, and by targeting investment in new projects that promote green growth, we can help to build the balanced, dynamic low-carbon economy that is essential for our future prosperity. The White Paper and the associated local sustainable transport fund demonstrate our commitment to taking that agenda forward, and I commend them to the House.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for forwarding me a copy of his statement earlier today. However, I am afraid that he has given us nothing more than a re-heated and re-packaged announcement to cover his embarrassment at the devastating impact that the speed and scale of his Government’s cuts is having on local transport throughout the country. Despite all his warm words about the importance of local transport, this Tory-led Government, of whom he is a hostage, are decimating bus services, putting rail travel out of the price range of many and crippling local government’s ability to deliver vital local transport improvements.

The hon. Gentleman talks of his “new” £560 million local sustainable transport fund, yet he knows full well that the fund, which he announced in the comprehensive spending review, is a sticking plaster over the gaping hole left by his massive 28% cut to local government transport spending. Will he confirm that while he is front-loading the cuts, he is providing only £30 million of capital spending and £50 million of revenue spending for the next financial year, which in effect means that local government transport was cut by £309 million this year, and he is giving back £80 million next year? It is no wonder that he told The Daily Telegraph:

“I don’t like George Osborne very much”.

For all the Under-Secretary’s good intentions and personal commitment to sustainable transport, is he not operating with one hand tied behind his back—doubtless tied there by the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government? Now we know who he was talking about when he told The Daily Telegraph:

“I mean, there are Tories who are quite good and there are Tories who are, you know, beyond the pale, and, you know, you have to just deal with the cards you’ve got”.

The truth is that the Under-Secretary has had a bad hand to play—a Budget settlement that will mean a significant reversal of the improvements in sustainable local transport schemes that were made during Labour’s period in office.

Does the Under-Secretary have any idea about what is actually happening to public transport around the country as a result of his policies? Does he realise that the 20% cut to the bus service operator grant, combined with changes to the concessionary fares scheme, is having a devastating impact on local bus services? With fuel prices at record levels, does he understand the impact of cutting the fuel cost subsidy on enabling bus operators to sustain unprofitable services?

Has the hon. Gentleman seen today’s reports that councils throughout the country are withdrawing services? Half the subsidised services are being axed in Somerset; more than 70 rural services are being scrapped or reduced in Durham; nearly 30 services are threatened in North Yorkshire; and 60 are being reviewed in Suffolk, while Kent has warned that all unprofitable routes will be axed. Does he have any idea of the social consequences of those cuts?

Has the Under-Secretary seen this week’s report from the Association of Colleges, which shows that 94% of colleges believe that the combination of scrapping education maintenance allowance and cutting local transport means that students will be unable to get to college and therefore unable to complete their courses? It is all well and good the Government’s telling people to get on the bus to find work, but they have to be able to afford to do that, and the buses have to be there. The impact of the cuts will be especially felt by those who are out of work and looking for a job, two thirds of whom do not have a driving licence or access to a car.

Does the Under-Secretary agree that all his good intentions are undermined when he prices people off the roads and off local public transport? Is he aware that his Department’s figures show that, without the bus service operator grant, there could be a 6.5% increase in fares and consequently a 6.7% fall in bus usage? He should be aware of it, because he signed off the parliamentary answer that gave the figures.

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that, by hiking rail fares by more than 30% across the spending review period, he is driving people off the railways and back on to the roads? [Interruption.] Instead of whispering in the Under-Secretary’s ear, the Secretary of State could have delivered the statement himself . Before the election, the Under-Secretary was going around the country, promising to cut rail fares. Now he is overseeing record increases. Does he understand that people will find his claims about investment in rail hollow at best when he has scaled back the planned electrification, cut the number of new carriages, and delayed the completion of major vital schemes, such as Thameslink and Crossrail? Does he accept that the consequence of hiking the costs of using public transport will force people back on to the roads, where they will be hit again by rising fuel prices, thanks to the increase in VAT on fuel to 20%? He is adding to the pressures faced by families who are already feeling the squeeze.

The Tory-led Government, of whom the Under-Secretary appears to be a frustrated and reluctant member, are reducing the amount of funding for local government transport schemes by more than a quarter. They claim to be green, to care about sustainability, to want to support public transport and to believe in localism, yet they give back with one hand to local communities today a fraction of what they have already taken away with the other. For all the warm words today and everything positive in the White Paper, we are seeing the localising not of transport decisions but of the blame for the Government’s cuts to local transport.

[Norman Baker]

I am afraid that the hon. Lady was her usual churlish self. There was not a single practical suggestion on how we might improve sustainable transport, and not a single admission that the deficit has caused any of the problems with which we are dealing. If I may say so, having had plenty of experience in opposition, the skill of opposition is not to oppose everything indiscriminately, 100%; it is about making positive suggestions as well as identifying problems. I am afraid that she has to learn a bit about opposition, as well as about other matters, perhaps, to do with how her party operates. She ought to be taking fewer lessons from Tom Baldwin about what language to use, and should concentrate more on transport matters, rather than on spin, as still happens with the Opposition, it seems.

The fact of the matter is that £560 million is a very substantial sum to invest in this area. We did so because we were interested in creating growth and cutting carbon—two matters that appear to be of little interest to the hon. Lady, judging by her peroration. I looked at the figures for sustainable transport grants for 2010-11—money spent in the Labour Government’s last year on cycling, school travel, smart ticketing and so on. It came to £120 million for that year. Next year, 2012, we will spend £140 million on the local sustainable transport fund, and that will rise to £180 million by 2014-15.

I point out that the previous Government’s spending was characterised by wasting money on reports, tick-box exercises and setting targets that were never met. For example, £150 million was spent on the travelling to school initiative, and the final evaluation report, which I shall publish next week, shows it to be very poor value for money indeed, in terms of changing behaviour in any shape or form. Our approach is different: set a clear vision to empower local authorities, and provide them with the funds to get on with the job that they need to do.

As for the matters that the hon. Lady actually raised, if I can discern any in her diatribe, the bus service operators grant, to which she referred, is not being cut this year; it will be reduced from the following year, and the reduction is less than the average reduction in revenue budgets across Government. She will know that the Confederation of Passenger Transport, which represents most bus companies, said that it thought, by and large, that the reduction could be absorbed without fares having to rise. She also pays no attention to the fact that the vast majority of bus services are commercially driven, so what councils have or do not have is irrelevant to the majority of the bus network in this country.

The hon. Lady paid no attention to the very good initiatives taking place, some of which I referred to in my statement. An example is the Wheels to Work initiative, which is busy giving people the opportunity to get back into work on a lower-carbon means of transport, helping the economy to grow, helping people out of unemployment, and helping to reduce carbon emissions at the same time.

I am very sorry that the hon. Lady chose to be so negative when the proposals were put forward, because if she listens to some of her party’s Back Benchers, she might find that there are matters in the statement that are welcomed by Members in all sections of the House.

High Speed Rail

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for early sight of his statement. Today, he is facing a rising tide of criticism over the transport chaos gripping the country, so it is unlucky that he is scheduled to update the House on high-speed travel on a day when most people would settle for travel at any speed at all. As he knows, it was Labour in government which set out a vision for a high-speed rail line running from London to Birmingham from 2026, and on to Leeds, Manchester and Scotland in phases during the following years. I pay tribute to the tenacity and determination of his predecessor, the noble Lord Adonis, whose exhaustive work on the scheme has allowed the right hon. Gentleman to pick up and run with the vision he has set out today for high-speed rail.

I recognise the importance of increasing rail capacity and connectivity, particularly in respect of the west coast main line and the Chiltern line beyond 2020. I assure the Secretary of State that Labour remains committed to investing in a world-class rail system, and that high-speed rail could have an important role to play in delivering it. That is why we began the planning process when in government—in fact, I suspect that his proposals probably have more support on the Labour Benches than on the Benches behind him. He is the one sitting in a divided Government, although for once the divisions do not involve the Liberal Democrats. No doubt, he will find out in due course whether he has done enough today to persuade the Secretary of State for Wales, who is in her place, not to resign in protest at his plans.

We have just embarked on a fundamental review of our policies, just as the Conservatives did after the Prime Minister became leader of his party—and just like the leader of the Liberal Democrats, who appears to have looked again at all his party’s policies since joining the Government. It would be ridiculous for our future support for high-speed rail not to be at the heart of that review—and it will be at the heart of it—given that it is a £30 billion commitment on future Parliaments. In the meantime, however, the Secretary of State has the support of Labour Members as he moves forward with the next stage of planning the route he has set out today.

It would be good if the Secretary of State were to show the same determination and commitment to other critical investment in our rail industry—investment needed now, not in future Parliaments. He has cut and delayed the vital investment we had planned for this Parliament; he has delayed the new generation of inter-city express trains and cut our plans for 1,300 new carriages; he has delayed much of the electrification that we planned and cut Great Western line electrification beyond Bristol and into Wales; and he has delayed the Thameslink and Crossrail schemes, which will not now benefit passengers until 2018—or is it now 2019? It keeps slipping.

We have set out an additional £7.5 billion of capital investment from which significant sums would have been invested in our rail networks in this Parliament. Does the Secretary of State realise that because he has cut so much spending in this Parliament while post-dating a £30 billion cheque for a high-speed rail scheme, the cost of which will fall in future Parliaments, people may well be sceptical about the extent of his commitment to Britain’s railways today? Does he understand how he puts at risk public support for future investment such as high-speed rail, given that he cannot even get the investment to keep our trains and other transport infrastructure running during severe weather?

Does the Secretary of State also understand the anger that will be felt in communities across the country when people hear him claim that his support for high-speed rail is due to concern about the north-south divide in Britain? His party’s support for high-speed rail is a fig leaf to disguise the fact that it has no strategy for investment, jobs or growth in the north. If he were really bothered about the north-south divide, he would not be supporting the scrapping of the regional development agencies, the future jobs fund and the education maintenance allowance, or the trebling of student fees, the delaying of broadband roll-out or the increase in VAT to 20%—another broken promise from both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. If he were really bothered about the north-south divide, he would not be loading the largest cuts on to councils in the midlands and the north. If he were really bothered about transport links beyond the south, why is it that authorities in the north are facing the biggest cuts in their road maintenance and local travel projects, with Merseyside facing cuts of 49% and Manchester cuts of 42%, while midlands and southern counties are doing much better?

Let me ask the Secretary of State some specific questions about the scheme that he has announced today. What impact will the changes to the route, the additional compensation and hardship payments, and the other commitments that he has made today have on the £750 million that he has allocated in this spending period? Can he offer an assurance that that will not have a knock-on effect on other rail schemes already facing cuts and delays, and that it will not set a precedent for compensation in other cases where infrastructure is driven through people’s homes and businesses? He has previously referred to the construction costs for major projects in the UK being significantly higher than for comparable projects elsewhere in Europe. What progress has he made, working with Infrastructure UK, to find ways of bringing down the cost of the scheme to the taxpayer?

Will the Secretary of State confirm whether the cost of the trains to run on the high-speed line has been included in the figures used for the cost of the scheme; or, as with other schemes, such as Crossrail, do they constitute separate expenditure yet to be identified? One of the things missing from the debate on high-speed rail to date has been the likely cost of using the service. Does he agree that if all taxpayers are to contribute so significantly to the cost of constructing the route, it cannot be a service with ticket prices outside the grasp of most people? Does he agree that many people will question his commitment to take the line beyond Birmingham, when he is restricting his proposed legislation to the first part of the route? Why is he not taking powers in the hybrid Bill to build the line to the north of Birmingham?

The Secretary of State’s party has no credibility when it comes to investing in our railways. We remember the 18 years of Tory under-investment in Britain’s railways, and the botched privatisation, which resulted in years of instability and uncertainty. It was Labour that delivered years of sustained investment, leading to a doubling of passenger numbers. He is right to continue the work, which Labour began, to prepare for high-speed rail in the UK. However, we must also see investment in rail schemes that will benefit the country and assist growth and economic recovery now, not just in 15 to 20 years’ time. We must see investment in technology to improve the resilience of the network to severe weather, and we must see passengers protected from the spiralling cost of fares. If the Secretary of State is really serious about maintaining a consensus on high-speed rail and building public support for his plans, he should think again about some of the decisions that he has taken in his first few months in the job. He should think again about cuts to new carriages, the delays to electrification and the massive hike in fares.

[Mr Hammond]

I will start with the good bits. I thank the hon. Lady for what I think was her support for the next stage of the process—going through the consultation and introducing a Bill later in this Parliament, if that is what we decide as a result of the consultation. I am also happy to pay tribute, as she did, to the work of my immediate predecessor in developing the case for high-speed rail, although it is worth noting that not all his predecessors seemed to have been quite so committed to the project.

I am afraid that it is the hon. Lady who lacks credibility, in talking about our failure to invest in the railway. She can talk about a decade of Labour investment as much as she likes. What most people will have noticed is a decade of driving us towards the brink of bankruptcy. What we have done is salvage a substantial programme of investment in rail infrastructure—a programme the scale of which neither she nor many commentators outside this place predicted we would be able to continue with—in the context of the extreme fiscal constraints that we face. We have gone ahead with Crossrail and Thameslink, and with a programme of additional rail vehicles—gone ahead with, not merely announced unfunded promises, which is her legacy. We will go ahead with the inter-city express programme, as I have already announced. We will announce to Parliament the details of that programme, along with the electrification associated with it, in the new year. The hon. Lady can go on all she likes about proposing £17 billion of additional investment. Her party has no economic plan, no policies and no credibility.

Turning to the specifics of the hon. Lady’s response, the high-speed rail investment that we are proposing will be approximately £2 billion a year over a period of 16 years. That is roughly what we are spending now on Thameslink and Crossrail, so large infrastructure projects can be funded while the investment in the mainstream main line railway is funded as it is now.

The hon. Lady asked about our commitment to high speed rail as a means of addressing the north-south divide, and she reeled off a string of tried and failed mechanisms for addressing that persistent problem. We have decided to take a new approach to closing the gap between economic growth rates in the north and south, and the experience of other countries suggests that investment in strategic infrastructure is the best way to deliver that outcome.

The hon. Lady asked whether the change of route and the exceptional hardship scheme will impact on the £750 million that has been set aside for HS 2 during this Parliament, and the answer to that is no. She also asked whether there would be an impact on other rail schemes’ budgets, and the answer is again no. The HS 2 budget is ring-fenced; other rail schemes are typically funded through Network Rail and through support to train operators.

The hon. Lady asked about the compensation scheme. I have indicated that we will seek to go further than has happened with previous such infrastructure schemes in the UK, because it is right and proper that individuals who suffer serious financial loss in the national interest should be compensated. She also asked whether we will be setting a precedent in that regard. She should be aware that developing European jurisprudence in the area of property rights and the need for Governments to compensate is pointing towards more generous compensation becoming the norm, and I suspect that that will be the case for future projects.

On construction costs, yes, we are of course anxious to get such costs down to something closer to European norms. The hon. Lady will know that Sir Roy McNulty is carrying out a review, one element of which relates to the cost of UK rail construction, and Infrastructure UK is also engaged in that issue. A report will be published in April. She asked whether the cost of the trains is included in the total figure, and I can confirm that it is.

The hon. Lady also asked about the assumption with regard to ticketing and to the prices of tickets. I can tell her that the business case modelling assumes the same ticket pricing structures as those that are now in place on the west coast main line. In practice, however, the west coast main line and High Speed 2 will be in competition with each other. The operator of High Speed 2 will have a very large number of seats to fill, and we anticipate that the processes of competition in the marketplace will create opportunities for passengers who are prepared to buy advance tickets and to shop on the internet to get bargains for travel between London, the midlands and the north.

Finally, the hon. Lady asked about the strength of our commitment to going beyond Birmingham. With respect, when her party was in government, its position was always focused on a line from London to Birmingham. It was us who took the debate beyond Birmingham and made the case for Manchester and Leeds. Indeed, the business case for this railway, for the connection to Heathrow airport and for the connection to HS 1 depends on a railway that forms a complete network linking Britain’s four principal population centres, so I can assure her of that commitment.

I put it to the hon. Lady, however, that if we had sought to carry out the detailed work required for a hybrid Bill that covered the entire route, including the legs to Manchester and Leeds, it is unlikely that we would have been able to introduce such a Bill until the end of this Parliament. Our decision was therefore to introduce a hybrid Bill to deal with the London to Birmingham section—which is already a massive undertaking—in 2013, and that, while that Bill is going through Parliament, we should continue our detailed work on the legs to Manchester and Leeds, so that they can be included in a further hybrid Bill in the next Parliament.

Severe Winter Weather

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

With permission, I would like to make a statement on the continuing severe winter weather. We are facing exceptional conditions. It looks set to be the coldest December since 1910 with average temperatures 4°C to 5°C below the norm for December. Many areas have had record low temperatures, and snowfall has been the most widespread since 1981. The forecast is for continued severe cold and further snowfall through the coming week and over Christmas and the new year.

Transport services have suffered extensive disruption in the past few days, and there is a likelihood, I am afraid, of further disruption through this week. I recognise that this is particularly stressful just a few days ahead of the Christmas break, and I understand the frustration of those who are trying to get away or, indeed, trying to get home.

Transport services were also disrupted in the first spell of winter weather that came unusually early, at the end of November. That period tested the systems which, in some case, had performed so very poorly earlier this year. The then Government asked David Quarmby, chairman of the RAC Foundation and a former chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority, to conduct a review of last winter’s resilience. His initial report was issued in July and a final report was published in October. It made 28 recommendations, some of them directed at central Government, some at local government, and some at transport operators. Many of those recommendations have already been implemented, although some will necessarily take longer.

On 2 December I asked David Quarmby, in the light of the weather conditions that we were then experiencing, to conduct an audit of the implementation of his recommendations and to make any further observations that he felt necessary. This is an independent report and I understand that David Quarmby intends to publish it tomorrow.

One of the principal recommendations of the first Quarmby report concerned salt—levels of stocks that local authorities should hold, dosage rates for optimum use of stocks and the acquisition of a strategic stockpile by central Government. Local authorities went into this period with significantly better salt stocks than last winter and the Highways Agency, on the Government’s behalf, had purchased 300,000 tonnes of salt to form a strategic stockpile, of which over 150,000 tonnes is already at UK ports, with the remainder scheduled for delivery through December and early January.

Over the past few days, highway authorities across England have been focused on delivering their planned salting and snow clearance to keep their local strategic road networks open. Together they had ready some 1.25 million tonnes of salt at the start of the winter. As hon. Members would expect, salt usage has been significantly above the norm for the time of year and so my Department decided two weeks ago to procure, as a precautionary measure, up to an additional 250,000 tonnes of salt, to replenish the strategic stockpile as salt from it is released to local authorities. Last Friday the Department for Transport offered 30,000 tonnes from the strategic stockpile to local authorities to provide reassurance over the holiday period. That allocation has been taken up and will be delivered over the next few days.

The strategic road network inevitably suffered severe disruption in the wake of heavy snowfall this weekend, but recovered reasonably rapidly and, with isolated exceptions, has operated effectively since Saturday afternoon. Similarly, heavy snow and the formation of ice at very low temperatures caused some disruption on rail networks on Friday and Saturday, but the rail industry has pulled together to keep essential services running, using special timetables where necessary, and I am pleased to report that commuter services into main conurbations this morning are close to normal. Transport for London has successfully followed its winter weather plans and has been able to run a near-normal service across its network. However, issues with Eurostar are ongoing and have been well reported today, including the impacts of very severe weather in northern France.

Disruption due to weather conditions of this extremity is inevitable, and the measure of resilience is the networks’ speed of recovery from such events. On that measure, the strategic road network and the rail network have performed broadly satisfactorily, in view of the exceptional circumstances. The experience at airports, and at Heathrow in particular, has however been different. Conditions have been difficult throughout north-west Europe, with Frankfurt, Charles de Gaulle and Schiphol airports all struggling to cope at times. This afternoon, just before I came into the Chamber, it was being reported that Brussels airport will close until Wednesday because it has run out of de-icer. But, yesterday’s whole-day virtual closure at Heathrow, coupled with continued substantially reduced capacity, presents a very real challenge from which the system will struggle to recover quickly.

I spoke this morning to BAA, the airport operator, and to British Airways, its principal user. I am clear that BA made the right call on Saturday to cancel its flights in anticipation of the airport’s closure. Had it not done so, the scenes of the terminals on Saturday night that we witnessed on our TV screens could have been much worse.

Heathrow operates, at normal times, at some 98% of full capacity, so when there is disruption caused by snow or by the need repeatedly to close runways or taxiways for de-icing, capacity is inevitably lost and a backlog builds up. There is still a large amount of work to be done to restore Heathrow to full capacity, and further snow and severe icing is anticipated over the next few days.

The immediate focus at Heathrow must therefore be on maximising the number of flights with the available infrastructure, and in order to do that I agreed with BAA this morning to a relaxation of restrictions on night flights for the next four days. Operating hours will be extended until 1 am, and arrivals for repatriation flights will be allowed through the night. None the less, BAA advises that, with further severe weather forecast, Heathrow is likely to be operating at reduced capacity until Christmas.

Conditions in the terminals overnight on Saturday were very difficult, with some 2,000 passengers stranded. Once the airport has returned to normal operation, my officials will work with BAA to understand how that situation arose and what it plans to change to ensure that we do not experience a repeat. It is clear from my discussions this morning that some preliminary conclusions have already been drawn.

We recognise that the cost, both economic and social, of this level of disruption can be great. Winters such as this year’s and last have been rare in modern Britain, but we need to consider whether we are now seeing in our weather a step change that might justify investment in equipment and technologies to reduce the impact of severe weather. I will assess advice on that subject from the Government’s chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, and we will work with transport operators to examine the business case in each sector for increased investment in winter resilience where that makes sense—recognising always that spending more on winter preparedness inevitably means that there will be less to spend on other priorities.

This is not just about making sure that people can travel and goods can be delivered. Disrupted transport links, combined with cold weather, increasingly impact on other essential services. In particular, they threaten the vulnerable in our communities. To help those most in need to stay warm in the coldest parts of the country, the Government have so far this winter paid out some £355 million in cold weather payments, through an estimated 14.2 million payments to affected households. In addition. winter fuel payments for pensioners have been protected at the higher rate for this winter, with 12.9 million payments made to those older people who meet the qualifying conditions. We have also taken precautionary steps to ensure that the health services are well prepared, with local plans in place to deal with the extra demands that this type of weather brings.

Despite those steps, weather of this severity can cause unexpected problems for many people, including those who would not normally consider themselves vulnerable, but who might be in serious difficulty if, for example, their boiler breaks down or they cannot get to the local chemist to collect their medication. With support from the Government, the Local Government Association will therefore work closely with local authorities in England to ensure that appropriate arrangements are in place across the country. Individual local authorities will publicise information locally on how to access those advice services ahead of the Christmas holiday period.

Severe weather poses significant challenges to the energy supply industry. Difficult driving conditions have affected fuel oil and coal suppliers’ ability to make deliveries, particularly to more remote areas away from the strategic road network. That has resulted in delivery backlogs, which suppliers have been working hard to reduce in difficult circumstances. Distributors are doing all they can to prioritise deliveries to vulnerable customers and to people who are running short of fuel. Working with the Government, the Federation of Petroleum Suppliers has issued a code of practice to its members to help them prioritise orders to those most in need and to alert local authorities when they are aware of a risk of potentially vulnerable households running short of heating oil.

The severe weather has also led to a very high forecast of demand for gas, which is expected to be more than 26% above the normal for this time of year. As a result, the National Grid issued a gas-balancing alert yesterday to provide a signal to the market to bring on additional supplies and to reduce demand from large users on interruptible contracts. There is no reason to expect any disruption to domestic customers, or to commercial customers unless they have interruptible contracts. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has today issued a written statement that provides more information on that issue.

Nationally, we will continue to do whatever is necessary to support essential services and provide advice to businesses and householders on steps they can take to help themselves and others. So, for example, we have published a snow code to give common-sense advice to householders and businesses to help them clear snow and ice safely from pavements and public spaces without fear of legal action. As an emergency measure, we have relaxed the enforcement of EU drivers’ hours and working-time rules to mitigate the effect of the severe weather on critical parts of the supply chain that have been badly hit by the weather. We published guidance for local highway authorities on the range of actions that can be taken to ensure optimum use of salt stocks, and over the next few days we will publish updated technical advice based on the latest research findings, so that all authorities can adopt best practice. We have also confirmed to farmers that they can use red diesel in tractors and other equipment to help salt and clear snow from public roads during extreme weather.

We are not yet through this period of extreme weather. My priority at the moment remains working with the transport industries to allow us to return to normal as fast as the continued freezing temperatures this week permit. I will also be working with ministerial colleagues and officials from other Departments, with whom I have been in contact daily since Friday, to continue monitoring the situation, assessing the risk of further disruption and taking whatever action is needed. Those arrangements will continue for as long as necessary through the holiday period. I can assure the House that wherever Government action can help to ease the impact of severe weather or mitigate its effects, we will not hesitate to take such action. I commend this statement to the House.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for updating the House. After a weekend of chaos across the country, during which there have been severe transport problems on our roads, railways and runways, families struggling to get together for Christmas are furious that they have spent hours stuck in their cars at stations or airport terminals. What has really frustrated people has been the total lack of information available. They understand that things will go wrong when we experience such severe weather and no one—not even me—is suggesting that the Government can, or ought to be able to, control the weather. However, the Government should be able to control how prepared we are for that weather, and they can co-ordinate information so that those travelling can make and alter their plans accordingly.

Right from the first hit of severe weather at the start of this month, the right hon. Gentleman and his Department have seemed woefully ill-prepared for winter, despite the fact that the report on winter resilience that we ordered in government has been sitting on his desk since July. The 17 recommendations in the interim report and the 11 recommendations in the final report have clearly not been put into action with the urgency that they demanded. At the last Transport questions, he said that those recommendations had been implemented, yet in his statement he said that some of them will necessarily take longer. Well, which is it?

The reality is that Transport Ministers were caught off guard by the arrival of winter early this year, and failed to keep the country moving at a time when so many people need to travel to be with their family and friends. I am afraid that some of the right hon. Gentleman’s words today still sound complacent. Why was only 100,000 tonnes of salt for the roads in place at the start of the month, when the report said that 250,000 tonnes was needed? Can he confirm which local authorities currently have salt stocks below the new benchmark of 12 days’ worth of salt? What conversations has he had about services to deal with the abandoned cars and jack-knifed vehicles that have caused much of the delay? What steps has he considered to manage traffic flows better—for example, by not letting people join a motorway such as the M5 when it is already blocked, so that they will end up sitting in their cars not going anywhere? He said in his statement that the strategic routes have operated effectively since Saturday afternoon or evening: tell that to the people who were stuck for 13 and a half hours on the M40 trying to travel towards London.

On our railways, why does the update report that the Secretary of State has received in the past few days contradict the claim that the rail industry has sufficient equipment? Why are essential measures such as anti-icing capability on trains and new hot fluid distribution on to tracks not going to be in place until February, according to the most recent update—a little bit too late?

Does the Secretary of State accept that the most frustrating thing for passengers is lack of information? Why is it, therefore, that the new unified national real-time passenger transport information system to allow passengers to find out where their trains actually are, not what the timetable says, will not be in place until 2014? He said that the railways had kept essential services running and that commuter services were running well and close to normal, but people were stuck at Peterborough and King’s Cross last night with very little information about when the east coast main line was going to get back to normal.

The chaos that we have seen at our major airports is not only unacceptable but risks damaging our international reputation. It is just not good enough to pass this off as a private sector problem, as the Secretary of State did earlier. Passengers stuck at Heathrow and Gatwick for days on end have every right to feel abandoned by this Government. Other countries have kept planes flying and airports open, yet here passengers have been left on planes for hours on end without food and drink, and others have been forced to sleep on terminal floors with no blankets and poor information. The winter resilience report found that those in the aviation sector

“anticipate and manage the effects of severe winter weather to a very high standard of resilience”.

That is surprising given what we have seen in the past few days. Will he examine whether there has been any complacency among those at our airports? He referred to some preliminary conclusions following his conversations today, but he has not told us what they are. It might be useful to know.

Is it not the case that the chaos that we have seen has as much to do with this Government’s values as their competence? The Prime Minister’s close ally, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), gave the game away this weekend when he said:

“I mean, bluntly, there comes a question in life…Do you believe planning works…or do you believe it can’t work? I believe it can’t work, David Cameron believes it can’t, Nick Clegg believes it can’t. Chaos therefore in our vocabulary is a good thing.”

The right hon. Gentleman has obviously volunteered his Department to pilot this new approach to government and become the official Department for Chaos. He is doing quite well, actually. No wonder he has been dubbed the “No Transport Secretary” this morning.

People want competence from Ministers. They want good-quality information when disruption happens. They want co-ordination of recovery and mitigation across the entire system. They want help when they need it; they do not want to be left to fend for themselves as though there were no such thing as society. Will the right hon. Gentleman now learn the lessons of the past month and finally get a grip on the transport chaos that threatens to see Christmas cancelled for families up and down the country?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

After a heavy dump of snow, we have had a heavy dump of political opportunism from the hon. Lady. She talks of chaos, but does she remember the chaos last year when the Government of whom she was a member ran out of salt and had to stop gritting the roads because they had not bought enough of the stuff? They had not prepared at all. I will take no lectures from her on preparedness. Local authorities, the Highways Agency, rail operators and Network Rail have all entered this winter better prepared than they were last winter.

The hon. Lady talked about Quarmby’s interim report and final report, and the implementation of his recommendations. Of course action on some of the recommendations has not been completed yet—it requires capital investment and the procurement of new equipment, such as de-icing equipment for trains in the south-east. The first of that equipment has been delivered and fitted, and is undergoing proving trials. As soon as the proving is complete, the remaining 20 units will be rolled out. She cannot sit here with no plan, no suggestion and nothing constructive to offer, simply lobbing rocks from the sidelines, and expect to be treated seriously. As for our delivery on Quarmby’s recommendations, I suggest that she wait to see his report on the audit that he has carried out. He is their man, he was appointed by their Government, and he is now auditing our response to his recommendations. She should wait and see what he has to say before making such ridiculous points.

We were not caught off guard by the onset of winter, but we were caught off guard by the severity of the weather, as was everybody in this country. The hon. Lady asked about the recommendation that a strategic stockpile of 250,000 tonnes of salt be built. The Highways Agency has purchased 300,000 tonnes of salt, 156,000 tonnes of which has been delivered. The remainder is scheduled to be delivered over the next three weeks. If one is building a strategic stockpile, there is no need to replenish local authority stocks throughout the length of the winter, nor for every last ounce of it to be sitting in place on 30 November.

The hon. Lady asked how many local authorities are below the 12 days’ resilience level recommended by Quarmby. That threshold was recommended for the beginning of winter. Of course, many local authorities that were operating at or close to the threshold are now considerably below the 12 days’ resilience level, although some local authorities have much more substantial stocks. If they wish, local authorities will be resupplied from the strategic reserve that we have built. In turn, the strategic reserve will be replenished from the salt that we are currently sourcing from locations across the world, including south America, the middle east, India and Australia.

The hon. Lady asked about vehicles joining motorways. The police have powers to prevent vehicles from entering a motorway, if they deem it appropriate to do so.

The hon. Lady also mentioned the situation at the airports, and I am happy to agree that what has happened at Heathrow airport is not acceptable. We have to work with the airport operators and the airlines to work out how to avoid such situations. I can give her further clarification on the early conclusions that have been shared with me by the airport operator. It recognises that it was a mistake to continue trying to operate the schedules that it was using on Saturday, and that it should have made a decision earlier to cut severely the number of flights departing and arriving, so that the airport would not be congested with aircraft when the snow came in. That is the kind of practical lesson learning that must be done. We will work with the airport operators to ensure that next time such lessons are learned and implemented.

Finally, the hon. Lady had the audacity to ask why the rail equipment that Quarmby recommended in his October report is not in place and operating. The answer is clear: Labour did not order it when it was in government. We have ordered it, but it does not appear by magic, simply by snapping your fingers; these things have a lead time and must be done properly. The equipment will be in place by the end of the winter, and it will make our railways operate more effectively.

Winter Weather

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Most of the strategic road network across the country has been kept open, and most of it is open today. Some strategic roads have been closed, particularly on higher ground, either because of exceptionally heavy and drifting snow or because they have been blocked by accidents or abandoned vehicles. Individual decisions will have been made by the Highways Agency or, in some cases, by the police. I will write to my hon. Friend and tell him precisely the reason for the A5 closure.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I am afraid that the Secretary of State is demonstrating a remarkable—indeed, breathtaking—degree of complacency. Unfortunately, he is not filling the House with any confidence that he is dealing with his responsibilities adequately. He may recall that, on the publication of the interim report on winter resilience in July, he said:

“For two winters in a row, severe weather has caused significant disruption for transport in this country. The cost to the economy and the disruption to the public has been significant, and there has been a level of dissatisfaction and confusion about the response by Government at both local and national level. This is unacceptable and must be resolved before the next winter season.”—[Official Report, 26 July 2010; Vol. 514, c. 72WS.]

Is he really arguing that it has now been resolved?

Earlier today, during Transport questions, the Secretary of State said not only that the final and interim reports on winter resilience had been studied and not only that action had been taken—which he has just said again—but that the reports’ recommendations had been implemented. He appeared to row back from that statement in his response to the urgent question. Will he make clear in what way the 17 recommendations in the interim report and the 11 further recommendations in the final report have been implemented? Has the salt cell been activated, and, if not, can he tell us why not? Have the 250,000 tonnes of salt actually been stockpiled? The Secretary of State said that the salt had been ordered, and then said that there were 100,000 tonnes in the stockpile. The report which he told us earlier had been implemented called for a stockpile of 250,000 tonnes. Can he make the position a bit clearer?

This winter weather was forecast well in advance. It is not as if it suddenly came on us. The Met Office gave us plenty of warning. Does the Secretary of State believe that a grit audit is an adequate response from the Government to the current suffering of motorists forced to sleep freezing in their cars, of train passengers dropped off at stations with no way of being rescued, and of half the population who struggled to get to work and had to turn up late yesterday? Does he believe that the complacent attitude that he has demonstrated today is anywhere near good enough from people who purport to be the Government of this nation?

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We have no plans to review the rule.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Local transport and the bus service, in particular, is essential for many people, and of course it needs to be sustainable, but does the Secretary of State agree that cuts of 20% to the bus service operators grant will not only lead to fewer bus services and higher fares, but push people back into their cars and, therefore, do nothing for sustainability?

[Mr Hammond]

No, I do not. The hon. Lady will recall that prior to the spending review there was a great deal of speculation that the bus service operators grant would be abolished altogether, and the bus service operators warned of significant fare increases and cuts to services if that were to happen. I am pleased to say that we were able to achieve a cut of only 20% in the BSOG, and the operators indicate to us that that should not lead to a loss of services or to significant fare increases.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

Legislation dating from the 1930s restricts rallying, time trials and races on highways in the UK. An Act of Parliament would be required to change that. We are looking to deregulate the position so that if local authorities want to hold rallies, time trials or races, they should be allowed to do so.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

The winter resilience review commissioned by the previous Government has produced its final report and recommendations, yet the country is in chaos, with passengers forced to sleep at stations, freezing all night on broken-down trains or getting trapped in their cars, all at a cost to the economy of up to £1.2 billion a day. Why are not the findings of the review being implemented? The public do not want the Secretary of State to announce another review by the person who has already set out the blueprint for improvements. They want him to get on and implement the recommendations and improvements. When is the Secretary of State going to get a grip?

[Mr Hammond]

First of all, the hon. Lady fails to recognise the scale of the weather event that is occurring. It involves a significantly bigger snowfall than the one that occurred earlier this year, which gave rise to the events that caused my predecessor to commission the review. The findings and recommendations of the review have been implemented, and I have asked David Quarmby to come back and audit their implementation so that we can see the extent to which they have been consistently implemented and whether there are any lessons that we can learn from the last few days. I hope that the hon. Lady will support that approach.

Rail Investment

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Philip Hammond)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the Government’s plans for investment in rail infrastructure and rolling stock.

These plans build on the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the outcome of the spending review. As we have consistently said, tackling the deficit is our top priority, and by taking the tough decisions on current spending we are able to secure our future growth by making vital infrastructure investments. Over the next four years, we will provide £14 billion of funding to Network Rail to support capital maintenance and infrastructure investment, and £750 million for high-speed rail. We will also fund the Crossrail project, the tube upgrade programme and light rail projects in Birmingham, Tyneside, Nottingham and Sheffield, and provide additional funding to franchisees for extra rolling stock.

I can also confirm today that we will fund and deliver the Thameslink programme in its entirety, virtually doubling the number of north-south trains running through central London at peak times. This huge investment will link Sussex, Kent and Surrey, through central London, with Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. But the original programme for the rebuilding of London Bridge station to increase through-running as part of this project was always ambitious, with substantial risks in respect of delivery and operation of existing services during construction. To reduce these risks, we have re-profiled the delivery of the programme to achieve completion in 2018. This will enable Network Rail to make the further efficiencies in the design and delivery of the programme that we require to ensure value for money. Passengers will start to benefit from incremental improvements on the Thameslink routes from the end of 2011. As part of the Thameslink programme, we will procure a new fleet of trains—up to 1,200 new carriages. That is in addition to about 600 new carriages that will be provided for the Crossrail project.

Together with the tube upgrades, these projects represent a step change in rail capacity in London, providing a significant boost to economic growth potential in the capital. New Thameslink and Crossrail rolling stock will enable the redeployment of hundreds of serviceable electric carriages currently used on Thameslink services. These carriages belong to rolling stock leasing companies, but we expect they will be available at competitive leasing prices for re-use elsewhere, thus justifying further electrification of our network.

As a first step, I can announce today that Network Rail will electrify the commuter services on the great western main line from London to Didcot, Oxford and Newbury over the next six years. Electric trains will speed up journeys, improve reliability and reduce the impact on the environment on these busy routes.

The Chancellor also announced on 20 October the electrification of the lines between Liverpool, Manchester, Preston and Blackpool, representing an investment of up to £300 million. I expect work in the north-west to begin next year and to be completed at about the same time as work on the Thames valley commuter lines, in 2016. Some sections will be completed well ahead of this, notably Manchester to Newton-le-Willows in late-2013, allowing new electric trains to operate from Manchester to Scotland. As with Thameslink, we will require Network Rail to keep a tight rein on costs. The redeployment of electric rolling stock to these routes will, in turn, free up hundreds of diesel units, which will be available to train operators to lease as they become available in the period after 2015.

This will all be welcome news to passengers. The Public Accounts Committee recently found that many services are unacceptably overcrowded, and I understand the frustrations of rail travellers who have to travel on packed trains. More investment is clearly needed. That is why I argued for additional rail investment in the spending review, and it is also why I have taken the difficult decision to allow regulated fares to rise by 3% above inflation for the three years from 2012, to help us pay for these investments.

In January 2008, the previous Government published a plan to bring 1,300 additional carriages into service by March 2014. That plan was never deliverable. In total, only 206 of the 1,300 carriages had entered service by May this year. My predecessors quoted a grand total of rail carriages, but never referred publicly to the fact that delivery of that total was subject to so many caveats and qualifications as to render it effectively meaningless. According to their published plan, the 1,300 was not fixed and subject to

“value for money, affordability…linkages with other interventions or with other rail projects…infrastructure constraints…supply chain constraints”

and “credibility”. The document went on to say that

“the final outcome could well be different”.

In other words, it was not so much a plan as a press release.

So let me set the record straight. I can today confirm that an additional 650 carriages will have been delivered to the network between 6 May 2010 and March 2014. That is in addition to the Thameslink and Crossrail carriages I have already mentioned.

But it is not just about rolling stock. Network Rail has already started work on station improvements, with funding confirmed for developments at Reading, Birmingham, London King’s Cross and Gatwick airport. Investments on the east coast main line and midland main line and improvements in Yorkshire, on trans-Pennine routes, around Manchester and in south Wales will improve line speed, reliability and capacity of services.

Beyond these investments, there are far-reaching decisions to be made about inter-city services. In February 2009 the intercity express programme, launched by the previous Government, identified the Agility Trains consortium as preferred bidder to build a new fleet of inter-city trains. Then, this February, my predecessor invited Sir Andrew Foster, former head of the Audit Commission, to provide an independent assessment of the programme. Sir Andrew presented his report to me at the end of June, recommending further work on the Agility Trains proposal and a detailed study of the alternatives. I can now tell the House that we have narrowed down the options, from the four Sir Andrew identified to two. I have ruled out the option of requiring passengers to change from electric to diesel trains at a point in their journeys, recognising the value to passengers of preserving through-journeys. I have also ruled out the option of a wholesale refurbishment of the existing diesel InterCity 125 fleet, some of which dates back to the 1970s.

The remaining options are, on the one hand, a revised, lower cost proposal from Agility Trains envisaging a mixed fleet of some all-electric trains and some electric trains equipped with under-floor diesel generators, and on the other hand, a fleet of new all-electric trains which could be coupled to new diesel locomotives where the overhead electric power lines end. Both of these options would allow us to preserve through-journeys between London and parts of the rail network which are not electrified. Both of them would deliver faster journey times too. For example, we expect to see time savings of at least 15 minutes for the journey between Cardiff and London, bringing it below 2 hours. This is a major decision that will affect inter-city rail travel for decades to come, and we must get it right.

To address the outstanding issues on choice of train type and further electrification on the great western main line, additional work will be required within the Department, with Agility Trains, and with the Welsh Assembly Government on the business case for electrification into Wales. When this work, and discussions with the Welsh Assembly Government and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, has concluded, I expect to announce a final decision on the IEP and on further great western electrification in the new year.

The package I have confirmed today has been possible only because this Government have been prepared to take the tough decisions to protect investment in Britain’s future. This is a commitment to our railways that will benefit Britain for generations to come, and I commend the statement to the House.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for early sight of his much-delayed statement. We first read the details of the statement in the Sunday papers three weeks ago, we read them again two weeks ago and we saw much more detail in the press this morning. I know that he tabled this statement as a written ministerial statement today so that he could get away with spinning it on the “Today” programme, but his whole handling of this announcement is an insult to this House, which should be the first to hear about major Government policy decisions, not the last.

Despite all the spin and the re-announcing of decisions taken by the previous Government, many passengers will be bitterly disappointed by the right hon. Gentleman’s announcement today, because it amounts to delaying investment but bringing forward massive fare hikes. The real losers of today’s statement are commuters, who already suffer some of the highest fares in Europe and the worst overcrowding. Because of the cuts he has had to make to his budget, their fares will rise by 3% above inflation from next year and they now face waits of up to a decade for the new trains that will ease overcrowding and speed up journeys.

The statement delays the completion of Thameslink by two years to 2018, following the right hon. Gentleman’s previous decision to delay the completion of Crossrail by a year. His Department is already missing its targets for extra spaces by 15% at peak time in London and 33% in other major cities. Does he not understand the frustration there will be at his decision to delay the delivery of the new carriages that are vital to addressing this overcrowding?

On new carriages, the right hon. Gentleman tries to claim that the plans that Labour announced in government for 1,300 carriages were somehow a work of fiction. Perhaps I could remind him that his permanent secretary told the Public Accounts Committee in September that

“it was a commitment of the previous Government to deliver 1,300 carriages, for which they had a £1.2 billion budget.”

He made it clear that

“we had plans—clear plans—that we could evidence to the National Audit Office…to have acquired around 950 carriages and spent around £900 million.”

He also said that he had plans in place that

“would enable us to get to probably around 1,300 carriages and to develop the full capacity, using the full budget of £1.2 billion.”

Will the right hon. Gentleman now accept that he has cut the number of new carriages that we planned to be delivered in this spending review period, and that he must stop spinning? Why are commuters going to face overcrowding, which will not be substantially alleviated for almost 10 years, when the fares hikes that he says are to end overcrowding start this January?

People in Wales will feel most betrayed by the right hon. Gentleman’s announcement, following his decision to delay giving the green light to electrification of the great western line beyond Bristol. His manifesto was very clear on this, so let me remind him that it said:

“We support…the electrification of the Great Western line to South Wales.”

Perhaps no Welsh MP was in the room during the coalition negotiations, because that commitment was subsequently downgraded to a general statement of support for

“further electrification of the rail network.”

Today, we see why: it was because there was clearly never a commitment to Wales.

We are told that the Secretary of State for Wales is threatening to resign if high-speed rail goes through her English constituency. She does not seem to be threatening to resign over the fact that Wales, whose interests she represents in the Cabinet and is supposed to champion, is to remain the only European country other than Albania and Moldova with not a single metre of electrified track. Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider his decision not to approve the electrification of the great western main line to Swansea, as was planned by the previous Labour Government?

The right hon. Gentleman has also today ducked giving the green light to the intercity express programme. We are used to this Government going back on things they promised to do in their manifesto, but today’s statement sees him going back even on what he promised in his Department’s comprehensive spending review statement this October. I remind him that he said:

“Because aspects of Thameslink and HLOS rolling stock programmes, as well as projects to electrify the Great Western Mainline, and the rail routes around Manchester and Liverpool, are interdependent with the IEP decision, a full announcement on all these programmes will be made at the same time.”

Will he tell the House what has changed? Will he now tell us the real story behind the repeated delays to today’s statement and the real reason he has had to push so many of his decisions into next year? Is it true, as some believe, that by changing the specification of the IEP carriages after a preferred bidder was announced he now risks a legal challenge from other bidders?

Finally, does the right hon. Gentleman understand the anger felt by passengers up and down the country at his decision to allow rail fares to rise by such a large amount? His coalition agreement said:

“We are committed to fair pricing for rail travel”.

Can he tell hard-pressed commuters up and down the country why he thinks that allowing rail fares to rise by 3% above inflation after next year demonstrates his commitment to fair pricing? How does driving people off the railways and back into their cars help either our economy or the environment? Does he accept, as his Department has admitted, the very big impact on road congestion that is likely to be caused by his decision?

Is not the reality that he has come to the House today only because he said in his departmental plan that he would do so by the end of November 2010 and because his repeated briefings to the media have created an expectation that a statement was imminent? Does he not accept that his departmental plan commits him not to a statement, but to decisions? Has he today not just missed the first of his own targets in the departmental plan, which was supposed to be the Prime Minister’s way of keeping Secretaries of State on track to deliver Government promises?

Is not the reality of today’s statement that beyond re-announcing a whole series of investment decisions taken by the previous Labour Government and put on hold by him after the election, he has delayed the completion of Crossrail by a year, delayed the completion of Thameslink by two years to 2018, delayed giving the green light to electrification of the great western line beyond Bristol—that is a real betrayal of people in Wales—delayed giving any indication of when electrification of the midland main line will take place and delayed giving the green light to the intercity express programme? His statement pushes the delivery of projects into the next spending review period and ducks decisions on some of the country’s most vital transport infrastructure projects. His delayed statement is itself nothing more than one long series of delays.

[Mr Hammond]

In her second response to me at the Dispatch Box, the hon. Lady adopts a rather churlish tone. She talks about wanting decisions to be made. She will get decisions from this Government, but they will be properly thought through decisions based on value-for-money cases and proper consideration of all the matters that need to be dealt with; they will not be press releases made up on the spur of the moment by a Government who have gone on a regional junket and need something to announce to keep the regional press happy.

The hon. Lady complains that we issued a written ministerial statement this morning, but she ought to be able to understand that the content of this statement, because it touches, in particular, on the procurement of the intercity express programme, is market sensitive, so it was essential that we made a statement this morning before the markets opened.

The hon. Lady talks about fares, and I readily acknowledge that nobody in the commuter fraternity will welcome the increase in the cap on regulated fares that we have proposed for 2012 to 2015. But that is one of the tough decisions that we have had to take to protect the programme of investment in our railways. I have to say to her that I see no sign that anybody on the Opposition Front Bench is prepared to take tough decisions or to understand that without the ability and the willingness to do so they will simply have no credibility in the difficult debates on how we prioritise limited public expenditure.

The hon. Lady criticises the delay in delivering the complete Thameslink project—the 24 trains an hour in both directions. I do not apologise to her or to the House for taking a decision that the programme, as originally set out, contained too many risks—there were risks of cost overruns and risks to existing commuter services into London Bridge station. With Network Rail, we have revised the schedule to create a lower-risk alternative that is both less costly and less disruptive to existing commuter services.

The hon. Lady talks about the midland main line—she seems to have discovered it this morning. There was not a word about the electrification of the midland main line during the 13 years for which the Opposition were in government, but today she wants to bring it up as though it were some Labour priority we are abandoning. For the record, the case for electrification of the midland main line remains strong and we will consider it as a project for control period 5, which begins in 2014.

The hon. Lady attacks me for describing the 1,300 rail carriages to which her predecessors apparently committed as a work of fiction. She is new to the job, I understand, and these are difficult numbers—[Interruption.] I am quite new to this, too, and I can tell the House that they are difficult numbers. If she drills down and has a look, she will see that the figure of 1,300 was maintained early this year only by the inclusion of 400 of the 1,200 Thameslink carriages in the total—a complete and ongoing fabrication to avoid abandoning a number that was never sustainable. The Opposition could not have delivered them because they are not prepared to support any of the decisions that have allowed capital investment to continue. They do not support the fare increase, they do not support cuts in welfare expenditure and they do not support cuts in public expenditure to allow prioritisation of capital investment.

The hon. Lady has the audacity to raise the issue of Wales, but, as she says, Wales has not one metre of electrified railway—after 13 years of a Labour Government. We will take no lectures from her on electrification in Wales.