Railways

My Lords, I feel sorry for the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe. Tory central office keeps handing out this speech; it is the same speech we have heard from the Conservative Party on a number of occasions. Her leader says the Conservatives should give credit where it is due; well, they have to start doing that. For the past decade there has been a period of unparalleled growth in passenger numbers on the rail network, as well as growth in expenditure, commitment and support. The network is in a better state now than it has been for a very long time. I do not always agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, but I found myself in a fair measure of agreement with him today. He has a reputation for speaking a lot of sense on these matters, and he does not play the party political card overmuch, to give him some credit. What can I say about the Conservative position? It is characterised by underinvestment. Over the past 10 years we have had to pick up and tackle the failings of an appalling privatisation. I shall quote the noble Baroness’s own party discussing the issues—among themselves, as it were. Was it Chris Grayling who said, "““I think we have not had a clear transport strategy in this party in recent years; we’ve had tactical positions””.?" I do not lose much heart at what the noble Baroness has said in responding to a Statement that I see as very positive in terms of what it will deliver—and delivery is what it is all about. The noble Baroness asked some good questions, and I will try to deal with some of those. Thameslink, Birmingham New Street and Reading are all funded, and we are committed to funding the development of Thameslink. A key element of that will be delivered by 2011 and it will be completed, as I understand it, by 2015. The 300 additional trains to which the noble Baroness drew attention are over and above the 1,000 trains highlighted in March. I remind the noble Baroness that planning permission was received for Thameslink only last year. There has been project delay in the past, largely because money had to be diverted into paying for the costs of the privatisation extravaganza that the previous Government embarked upon. The noble Baroness also asked—and this was echoed in the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw—when we will start to purchase trains. We are starting the process with the industry now and will publish a detailed plan next January. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, asked about ROSCOs. We do not expect the ROSCO reference to delay the process. I think that reference is about old trains, not new ones. The noble Lord made a fair point about Network Rail governance. Fair enough, but the noble Lord knows that it is a private company and its governance is scrutinised by the independent regulator. It is fair to say that current arrangements are working quite well. On safety, we do not believe that significant investment will be required to deliver the 3 per cent reduction in risks on the network. That is helped by the fact that we are now deploying new trains and better equipment. There have also been better working practices in the past few years—perhaps, one has to acknowledge, as a by-product of some of our earlier problems. The noble Lord, Lord, Bradshaw, makes his usual point about car parking, which I well understand. It is mentioned explicitly in the White Paper and recognised as being important, because we know that it will help get a critical mass of passengers at major rail headline areas, which we believe is important. The criticism was also made that there is no announcement on Crossrail. We accept that Crossrail is a good scheme with many benefits, which are manifestly apparent to all of us. It is an important scheme, with the potential to do for the east-west corridor what Thameslink achieves for the north-south corridor. We have introduced an enabling Bill, which is going through the process of getting parliamentary approval, and we shall move on to seek further financial and parliamentary approval in due course. Regulated fares have fallen in real terms since 1997—I usually quote the figure of some 2 per cent. Noble Lords may not think that that is enough, but it is an indication of our encouragement of the use and take-up of regulated fares. We maintain that the cheapest fares are cheaper in cash terms than back in 1997—which, to the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, was a time of rail nirvana, if we listen to the Tory script. But I am not inclined to do that. Eighty per cent of passengers enjoy regulated or discounted fares, so only 20 per cent pay the full or walk-on cost at any given time. This White Paper demonstrates our commitment to the network and our continued investment. It demonstrates, too, that we wish to see growth in passenger use of the network and that we plan for that growth over not only the next seven years to 2014 but to 2020, 2030 and beyond. This is a recognition that we are genuinely in the age of the train.