London Underground

I have just taken part in the Northern Rock debate, and there seems to be something of a theme today: disasters made in Downing street, shocking mismanagement of public funds and cavalier abandon on the part of the Prime Minister. In the case of Northern Rock, the Prime Minister was very much in the background of the fiasco, which involved the credit boom, poor banking oversight, low savings rates and so on. In the case of PPP, he is right at the heart of the matter. Of course, there is another individual involved. The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen) and I will disagree about the role of the current Mayor, Ken Livingstone, but he is certainly part of the story. Before examining what has happened with PPP in the past eight or nine years, I shall share with the House some of the experiences that my constituents face daily on the tube. According to the 2001 census, the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham has the highest percentage of tube users of any local authority area in the whole of Britain, but we suffer from some of the worst lines. My hon. Friends the Members for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) and for Putney (Justine Greening) are in their places: we share the Wimbledon branch of the District line, which goes from Earl's Court to Wimbledon, and doubtless both of them will say something about it later. A couple of years ago, the Wimbledon branch of the District line was at 92 per cent. of capacity, which was significantly higher than the District line branches to Richmond and Ealing, which are overcrowded themselves. My constituents generally wait between the hours of 7.30 am and 8.30 am on Monday to Friday at such stations as Parsons Green and Fulham Broadway. By the time the train reaches those stations from Wimbledon and Putney, it is already incredibly, inhumanly full. People often have to wait for the third train—