House of Commons Hansard Debates for 26 Jun 1990

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"Mr. Parkinson should know that our feelings are not the issue ; the prevention of a recurrence is. He agreed an inquiry was necessary and then failed to launch one. Mr. Prescott has now also promised an immediate, comprehensive and independent inquiry into air security. We have no reason to doubt his word."

That is what the relatives want and that is what we are prepared to promise them. Dr. Swuire continued :

"We might as well allow the vulture Prescott to tear at the corpse of the Government's anti-terrorist position."

I am prepared to allow the relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie tragedy to answer for me the Secretary of State's cheap abuse.

Perhaps more relevant was the Secretary of State's remark about me, reported in The Sunday Times :

"He can't make the facts fit his case."

He was referring to safety in the railway industry. [Hon. Members :-- "Come on."] It is our debate and it has to do with safety ; indeed, the amendment tabled by the Secretary of State mentions the safety of the railway system. I want to bring to the attention of the House the fact that one cannot accept what the Secretary of State says in his parliamentary replies.

In his remarks about railway safety at the conference, the right hon. Gentleman referred to making the facts fit the case. He expressed his concern that I was not telling the truth about safety problems in the railway industry when I said that the number of deaths had increased. I tabled a number of parliamentary questions on the subject.

The railway inspectors' report showed that, in the four years to 1988, deaths on the railway system had increased from 355 to 693. That was a considerable increase and some terrible tragedies were taken into account in those figures. The trend had been noticed prior to that, however. That information prompted me to look at the facts concerning deaths and serious accidents in the railway industry and, again, I tabled a number of questions. I was anxious also to look at accidents involving railway staff, and was concerned to discover that, although deaths had fallen by a third, serious injuries had increased by nearly 30 per cent.

I tabled further questions, primarily because I was concerned about cuts in the safety inspectorate. The Secretary of State knows--he said it in his reply--that the safety inspectorate was at full strength until 1984 but since then the position has deteriorated. There were 17 in 1987 but only 16 in 1988, which meant that the inspectorate was under-represented by one third. In 1989, at the behest of the Fennell inquiry, the inspectorate's establishment was increased to 32 but, to date, only 24 inspectors are employed. The inspectorate is undermanned by 25 per cent. I was worried by the criticism of the railways in the Fennell report, which said that the inspectors were confused, did not know what their obligations were and had ignored their responsibilities. My inquiries into the railway inspectorate led me to the view that we should remove the inspectorate from the Department of Transport because it has failed to face up to its responsibilities. I believe that the Secretary of State is slowly having to accept that.

I was concerned about the figures in the parliamentary replies. Indeed, I was surprised by the figures provided by the Secretary of State, which were different from those that I had seen in the inspectors' report. I asked for the figures for 1979 to the present day. Ever helpful, the Secretary of State gave me the figures from 1974 to 1979 because he wanted to make a political point about Labour's record. I

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do not know whether Secretaries of State normally give more information than hon. Members ask for, but I could see that the Secretary of State was making a political point. He was also making a point of presentation, about which the Secretary of State claims to be an expert. He wanted to present the argument in a better way. To that end, the Secretary of State gave us the figures for 1974 to 1979. According to him, deaths and serious injuries had increased by 13.1 per cent. under Labour while during a similar period under a Conservative Government, the figure had been reduced by 6.5 per cent. The Sunday Times reported the Secretary of State telling the Conservative women's conference that there had been a 40 per cent. drop in accidents. I am sure all hon. Members would welcome that if it was the truth.

I took the Secretary of State's figures to the Library because I found the figures for 1974 to 1979 most surprising. I did not ask for the figures that far back, because the classification base changed substantially in 1979. Indeed, the Library confirmed that. It is not possible to separate serious injuries from minor injuries for the period 1974 to 1979. The Secretary of State, or whoever prepared the figures for him, had calculated serious injuries at 11 per cent. of the total. Why is it an 12 per cent. guesstimate under Labour, while for every year after that period the figure is 7 per cent.? Something smells. Something is wrong. The figures do not fit the facts, as the Library confirmed this afternoon.

The Government do not fiddle the statistics in only one or two areas of policy. I have outlined my accusation about the Secretary of State's figures, which I asked the Library to check. Perhaps the Secretary of State cannot be aware of all the figures. I am prepared to accept that, although he has often said in the House how he is intelligent and has an ability with figures and that the Opposition do not understand them. I will give the Secretary of State some figures to consider now.

With regard to the figures for deaths and accidents, the Secretary of State's first fiddle was that the guesstimate of 12 per cent. should have been 7 per cent. on average. That would have reduced the Secretary of State's figure of 13.1 per cent. to 8.4 per cent. The second fiddle was the underestimate of the deaths for 1979 to 1983. I have checked the inspector's report and the figure is not 153, it is 157. The former figure is favourable for the Secretary of State's argument.

The third mistake with the figures for 1974 to 1979 arose because the population figures were taken into account. I am not sure what those population figures are because they are not spelt out. However, I suspect that the Secretary of State has not considered the qualifications in the statistical changes. Those should have been considered if the Secretary of State wants to get into the political argy-bargy about what happened under Labour as opposed to what happened under the Tories. I am concerned about the trend in deaths and accidents, and not about political points.

The Secretary of State should have considered the way he handled the statistics. If he had done that, his mistakes might have been evident to his accountant's mind. In his written answer to my question, the Secretary of State gave the percentage expressed as a proportion of 1,000 deaths. Is he really trying to tell the House that for the period about which I am interested, the number of deaths was 5.9

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per 1,000? That is wrong. The real figure is 0.59. He overestimated the figure by 10 times the amount. The Library confirmed that point.

The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Cecil Parkinson) : In his question, the hon. Gentleman asked :

"how many railway staff have been killed or suffered major injuries for the period 1979 to 1983 and 1984 to 1988 ; and what they represent as a proportion per 1,000 railway staff employed."--[ Official Report, 24 May 1990 ; Vol. 173, c. 294. ]

My reply was prepared for me by my Department in good faith. I trust my officials, and I stand by them. I will have the figures looked at. However, my point is that the proportion of deaths and major injuries per 1,000 was 5.9, not the proportion of deaths alone.

Mr. Prescott : But it is expressed as a proportion per 1,000. I shall not prolong the argument-- [Interruption.] I can do so if Conservative Members wish. The information is in the railway figures. It is 10 times the number of people who died or were seriously injured. It is a simple statistic. Conservative Members should look at the facts. The Secretary of State says that a mistake may have been made--clearly, it has been. British Rail has written to him and protested that the numbers appear to be 10 times greater. The Secretary of State may not know about that. He should ask Sir Humphrey--he might be able to tell him.

The Secretary of State concentrated on a party political presentation rather than on the real issue--deaths and accidents. He is often loose with the interpretation of data in the House. When he wanted to say that the channel tunnel was not important, the proportion of freight went from 20 per cent. to 7 per cent. Mr. Morton, the channel tunnel chairman, was furiously trying to raise money in Japan. The Secretary of State told him that it was an insignificant amount of freight. There are many such examples, and they are not helpful to politics. If the Secretary of State is to change those things-- [Interruption.] I have made the relevant point, and I hope that the Secretary of State will look at it.

Mr. Robert Adley (Christchurch) : I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is unsavoury to make party political points out of accident figures. On accident ratios, does he agree that all the evidence demonstrates that it is far more dangerous to travel by road than by rail? Is not that a good reason for investing in rail? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the latest figures that are emerging from West Germany show that it is 24 times more dangerous to travel by road? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, in this country and in the European Community, we need the proper collation of statistics on an equal basis so that we can make a better quality of judgment?

Mr. Prescott : I entirely endorse what the hon. Gentleman has said. That is why I want the railway inspectorate out of the Department and a common approach to independent statistics, so that we can make proper judgments. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I was concerned about the wholesale indictment of the railway inspectorate in the Fennell report and the reduction in the number of safety inspectors, which has long been a Government policy. That is a signal that, for the Government, safety is not as important as it was. That is the issue. It is not right for us to cut safety. If we do that, we shall pay the consequences in deaths and injuries. It is a simple point, but it is critical.

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Mr. John P. Smith (Vale of Glamorgan) : Does my hon. Friend agree that an important statistic in assessing the safety of British Rail is not just accidents and injuries to staff and the public but the number of near misses, in particular the overshooting of red lights? Will my hon. Friend confirm that those matters have increased in recent years and are very worrying?

Mr. Prescott : Yes, I confirm that. We are all worried. I am sure that the Secretary of State is extremely concerned. The Department is conducting some studies of those matters. However, they are also connected with fatigue. Another lesson from the inquiry is that, if workers are worked for far too many hours because other employees have been sacked--as British Rail has done--and we try to compensate with a smaller work force, there is less vigilance and safety and the possibility that such incidents will increase. Fatigue is a major concern for bus drivers, train drivers, pilots and so on, and we must be concerned about it.

It was unfortunate that, at that same conference, the Prime Minister announced her great transport initiative--toll roads exclusively for lorries. Would not it have been great if she said, "It would be nice to do something about rail"? That was her first statement on future transport policy--yet again, a road solution--when she had already sabotaged the channel tunnel rail link.

I do not intend to reiterate the arguments that I have put in previous debates about the cut in the quality of services. The consumer body for the railway service made it absolutely clear--I have the relevant quotes, but time has been taken up by interventions [ Hon. Members :-- "Oh!"] I have tried to allow as many hon. Members as possible to intervene.

Mr. Conal Gregory (York) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Prescott : No.

My response to the quotation about whether the quality of the service has deteriorated, is that it clearly has. The Secretary of State often refers to investment--no doubt we shall hear a lot more about it today--so I must advise the right hon. Gentleman that the report of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission made it clear, when comparing the investment made by the Labour and Tory Governments at 1985-86 prices, that that investment was far better under Labour than under the Tories.

I shall not ignore the fact that more money is going into the railway system. However, the right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that the average age of the equipment in 1979 was 19 years. Once that equipment is 27 or 28 years old, it begins to get clapped out and investment decisions cannot be put off. I hope that we can all agree that capital investment decisions have been affected under both Labour and Tory Governments because the Treasury takes a short-term attitude to capital investment in British Rail.

The tragedy for the Government is that the profile age of the capital equipment was about 28 years. That means that it had to invest, because the equipment could not keep going any longer. Therefore, I readily accept what the Secretary of State says about the current investment rate being the highest for 25 years. Indeed, the last time it was really high was in 1955, when the same thing happened and the equipment had to be replaced because it was totally clapped out.

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In 1981, the British Railways Board issued a warning to the Government :

"A crucial decision has to be taken soon about the future of British Rail. BR must be prepared to take either the path of progress by re-equipment and modernisation, or that of decline through a gradual but deliberate run-down of the system. We cannot continue as we have done in the past. We are reaching the dividing of the ways." The Government's answer was to bring in Professor Walters, slash the public service obligation from the 1983 levels at a loss of about £2 billion to BR and, through its financial framework, to make it much more difficult for British Rail to make adequate provision of services and proper investment. The Government ignored that need, saying, "We will cut your public services. We will give you higher rates of return. We will make that much more difficult to achieve. We hope that, when we have done that you will sack more workers, sell more land, privatise the sector, and make up the difference." Basically, that is what British Rail did, and that is how it ran its finances.

When the Secretary of State tells us about investment, I hope that he will tell us how much of the investment is provided by the Government. Conservative Members often tell me that the Government have put money into the railway system, so I hope that they will tell us what proportion of investment has come from fares and how much has come from the Government. I hope that the Secretary of State will not tell us how much investment the Government have sanctioned, because legislation requires them to give that sanction. I want to know how much the Government have actually given. That is the key question. Because of this system, the passenger is taking the strain, not the British Rail system.

The Government's attitude has created real problems. The financial framework has caused considerable difficulties. Today's edition of The Guardian provides further examples. We see that the public service obligation target for the south-east region might have to be reduced and that it is hoped to eliminate it by 1992. That will mean higher fares. Because the corporate review assumed that growth would be twice the rate that it is, and that property prices would be higher than they are, British Rail is now facing a financial crisis. In the next month, it will make further great losses and will be unable to meet its financial targets. Once again, it will be on the financial rack and no doubt the Government will come along and change the corporate plan. The Secretary of State knows that, when he announced the corporate plan, I said that it could not work, that there would be financial difficulties and that he would have to review it. I shall wait, and then I shall again say, "I told you so."

Although the Secretary of State need not take any notice of me because many other people are saying the same thing, he should consider whether there is any substance in those arguments and if there is, he should heed them. The Secretary of State fails to listen to any arguments--

Mr. Robert Hayward (Kingswood) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Prescott : That is why we legitimately make the charge-- Mr. Hayward rose --

Mr. Prescott : No, I shall not give way again--[ Hon. Members :-- "Give way."] No, I shall not give way.

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That is why we legitimately charge the Government with being Tory luddites towards high-speed rail. I often hear the Secretary of State talking about the train grand vitesse as if we do not understand it. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has been on a TGV--we have only just managed to force him on to the railways in Britain--but I was on a TGV only last week, yet again, and can advise him that travelling at nearly 200 mph is an impressive experience. However, I must now shock the right hon. Gentleman by telling him that that train carries post and high-value freight. The Secretary of State should understand that that train does not only carry passengers. It carries freight of considerable value. The Secretary of State often says that we do not understand that. However, when he made his decision about the tunnel, he denied us the opportunity of achieving a high-speed link this century.

If the Secretary of State cannot accept our criticism of this country's infrastructure, I refer him to what was said by John Banham at a conference that I attended. The Times reported :

"An image of Britain paralysed by traffic jams, scorned by its continental counterparts and isolated economically on the edge of Europe was outlined yesterday by John Banham"--

hardly a Labour party member. The Times reported John Banham as saying :

"The government had to overcome its allergy to strategic thinking' and begin work on a national transport strategy, backed by public funds, if Britain was to avoid entering the 21st century with the worst transport infrastructure in northern Europe.' "

John Banham could have taken that from "Moving Britain into the 1990s." We said it 12 months ago. Even the CBI, therefore, makes the same criticisms about Britain's transport system as we make. When the Secretary of State came to the House to make that statement--

Mr. Hayward : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. [ Hon. Members :-- "This is organised ; it is cheating."] This is an Opposition day, but is it acceptable for the Opposition spokesman to speak for 29 minutes without outlining one aspect of their policy?

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd) : The hon. Gentleman ought to know that that is not a matter for the Chair.

Mr. Prescott : The hon. Gentleman was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Department at one time and knows all about discipline in the Department of Transport.

Since we have been so right on many issues, I hope that the Secretary of State will listen to us on this occasion, so that we do not have to keep on saying, "We told you so." The Secretary of State made a statement last week about why he could not accept the joint project. He made it clear, as did the Prime Minister, that £1.9 billion would be needed to subsidise the project. When one inquires into that figure, however, one finds that £400 million is accounted for by terminus costs and improvements at King's Cross to cater for express trains from Kent. That is part of the developments in the south-east and ought not to be charged against Eurorail. A further £310 million is for freight trains. That cannot legitimately be charged to Eurorail. Then, £700 million is for the rolling-stock at Waterloo and for the rolling stock to take passengers and freight to the north.

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The Secretary of State told the House that repayment would not be due until 2010. I accept what he said about that. However, he did not tell the House that the total amount would be repaid on that date. The debts will not start to be repaid from 2010. Will the Secretary of State confirm that all the money, plus interest payments, will be paid in 2010 and that the debt repayment will not just begin in 2010? That is important to the financing of such a crucial project. The £500 million deficit between estimated revenue and the amount that Eurorail has provided is almost wholly due to Government intervention. They demanded a private partner. British Rail could have started this project two years ago. When they insisted on a private partner for British Rail they demanded that the rate of return should be 18 per cent. instead of 8 per cent. That adds to the cost when assessing whether a project will be profitable--a point that was made by Bob Reid. He pointed out that one can borrow at 8 per cent. from the Treasury.

When the Prime Minister was engaged in electioneering during the Kent county council elections, she said, "Don't worry : vote Tory ; we'll build tunnels and your environmental concerns will be looked after." Such a costly tunnelling operation for the line would certainly cost more than £500 million.

The Government say that they do not believe in intervention, but by their own actions they scuppered the project. Therefore, Britain has been denied the opportunity to invest both private and public money in a high-speed link. In its editorial, The Daily Telegraph --hardly a militant in the Labour party--said :

"In isolation, a refusal to commit public funds to support a project that is ultimately expected to benefit private shareholders may sound rational. But this newspaper sees the decision as an example of the muddled thinking which has bedevilled the Government's transport policy in recent years."

The article concluded by saying :

"For the time being, however, it is dismaying to note that Mr. John Prescott, Labour's front bench spokesman, has sounded considerably more convincing than his government counterpart in his analysis of the transport issue this week."

I am not inclined to blow my own trumpet, but it was nice to read that in The Daily Telegraph.

The Government's two-year delay has damaged out prestige and made it more difficult for British Rail to move into the 21st century. The way forward must be to review all the options. I asked the previous Secretary of State for Transport the same question 18 months ago and was told that that would cause delay. There is, however, to be a review of all the options, so there will be further delay. It is a pity that the Government did not take any notice of what we said 18 months ago.

On section 42, the Secretary of State said in his last statement to the House, that there would be no subsidies and that I was a firm advocate of that policy. I hope that he will withdraw those comments when he has checked the facts. I asked for evidence of that, but his Department failed to produce it. I can explain why--there was no debate on section 42 as such ; it simply passed through both Houses, for a number of reasons. I was not involved and it is incorrect to say that I was. I believe that there should be a review of section 42. I assume that public money is now becoming available because section 56 was mentioned at the conference, when it was suggested that there was a possibility of using it to help in the channel

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tunnel investment. Are we already witnessing public money coming along, with a review of the alternatives of King's Cross and Stratford?

The Secretary of State made great play of the fact that, according to him, I said on "Newsnight" that Labour's alternative of taking the high-speed link to Scotland would be financed by the infrastructure fund. He knows that to be untrue, because he has the script. If he would like me to quote it, I will. I did not say that it would be financed by the fund. I said that, if we were prepared to support the building of an enlarged fund-- which we are--more resources could come with the support of Ireland, Belgium and France because they want a high-speed European link. Britain would be in the same position in relation to the infrastructure fund as the French are to the agriculture fund. We could then begin to do it.

Nobody knows what would be the costs of that link. Even the Government do not know, after years of studying the cost of the connection from Folkestone to London. That is why I advocate a review of the financing-- wherever the money may come from--of the environmental damage, and of how we can improve the commercial viability of the link, the recommendation for its structure and ownership and the best connection to London. Those are the criteria that could be involved in a new link, and I hope that the Secretary of State will reconsider.

I am bound to say that it is beginning to appear as though the Government are adopting the Labour party policy that we have advocated for the best part of two years--that is reviewing the options, reconsidering public money, considering the EC structure fund and studying the possibility of introducing high-speed trains, as defined in Europe, with speeds up to 200 mph. The Government's policy on that is a total failure. They fail to understand the potential of a high-speed rail system. It offers the greatest potential to help us to reduce congestion ; to reduce the ever- increasing environmental damage to our system ; to provide a fast, safe, modern transport system for passengers and freight ; and to take British Rail into the 21st century.

That is necessary for Britain, not only so that it does not remain geographically on the periphery of Europe, but so that it gets into the centre by the provision of high-speed links. If the Government fail to provide that, as they appear to be doing, this century, the next Labour Government--who are surely on their way--will ensure that it does happen. Indeed, we are actually planning now to ensure that it is brought about.

4.37 pm

The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Cecil Parkinson) : I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof :

"congratulates the Government for pursuing a balanced transport policy involving record investment by the public and private sector in every aspect of the nation's transport systems ; recognises that this is the only way to give the customer more choice and a better quality of service ; applauds the Government for the high priority it gives to all matters of safety ; welcomes the contribution that the Channel Tunnel can make to improving links to the Continent of Europe and the £2 billion of investment in road and rail which will ensure the tunnel is fully serviced from the day it opens in 1993 ; commends the Government's support for the development of high speed trains which will be jointly owned by Britain, France and Belgium and which will operate in all

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three countries ; commends British Rail for developing plans for high speed freight services from all parts of the United Kingdom to the tunnel ; and calls on the Opposition to cease its policy of denigrating Britain.'."

It would be a relief to everybody if the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) stood by what he said he would do today and stopped constantly appearing on the television the moment after an accident, trying to blame it on something he calls "cuts". I shall tell him what prompted my remarks on Saturday, and it might actually interest him to know that many people recognised what I was referring to. The Labour party's document states :

"The tragedies of the 1980s--Zeebrugge, Lockerbie, Clapham, Kings Cross-- are symbols of a government which has put cost cutting before people's lives."

This is a disgraceful allegation. The hon. Gentleman knows that the Lockerbie incident is under investigation by the police. It involved a terrorist bomb, which was probably put on a plane in Frankfurt. The hon. Gentleman has already made up his mind.

Dr. Swire is a reasonable man and he wants a public inquiry. He believes that the hon. Gentleman shares his desire, but the hon. Gentleman has already said in the Labour party document that he does not need an inquiry because it is all down to cost cutting by the Government. That is a disgraceful slur and I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw it.

Mr. Prescott : Inquiries have not been conducted into the tragedies of Lockerbie and the Marchioness, but all the other inquiries pointed to the inadequacies of the Department of Transport and the cuts that contributed to the deaths. That is what we said in our report.

Mr. Parkinson : The hon. Gentleman just demonstrated that he tries to turn every tragedy into a party political matter and to cash in on it.

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for referring to the television programme in which he appeared when I meant to say that it was a radio programme. I recorded a similar programme a couple of nights later. During the programme the hon. Gentleman said in response to a question on the infrastructure fund :

"Britain's infrastructure is so bad we would get the majority of claims upon it and therefore we'd be a bit like the French with the Common Agricultural Fund."

In other words, we would get all the money out of it. Later the hon. Gentleman went on to say that the route up to Scotland would cost between £10 billion and £15 billion depending on what route was decided upon. He said :

"I think that the Community will be quite prepared to give it as a European infrastructure of a quite a proportion of that." I do not know quite what that sentence means as, in common with most of the hon. Gentleman's sentences, it does not finish. As I understand it, he acknowledged that his plans would cost between £10 billion and £15 billion. He said that quite a proportion of that cost could come from the infrastructure fund, but at that time the fund stood at £40 million. Last week, the Council of Ministers unanimously agreed to an ad hoc fund for another three years totalling £80 million. The final amount has yet to be settled, but that sum was the Commissioner's ambition. If the hon. Gentleman expects to receive quite a proportion of a fund totalling £80 million only, it is clear that £10 billion will account for many, many years of the accounts of that fund.

The hon. Gentleman is sponsored by the National Union of Seamen of which he is extremely proud and he

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speaks out for it. That union was violently in favour of section 42. At that time, did he disagree with his union? In the recent debate the hon. Gentleman said that he had changed his mind. Does that mean that he was never in favour of section 42 or that he previously supported it, but no longer?

Mr. Prescott : Circumstances change.

Mr. Parkinson : So the hon. Gentleman did support section 42, but he has changed his mind. I thank him for acknowledging that.

Mr. Gregory : Can my right hon. Friend clarify whether we have had a clear statement from the Opposition on transport? We have not had such clarification from the Opposition. Are we to assume that the hon. Members for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) and for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) are speaking as the paid hacks of the National Union of Seamen and the National Union of Railwaymen? There appears to be no clear distinction between their remarks on behalf of those unions and the Opposition's transport policy.

Mr. Parkinson : That is a matter for the hon. Gentlemen. This is the fourth debate that we have had on the railways in the past four months-- three of them have been initiated by the Opposition, as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East reminded us. Railways are an important part of our transport infrastructure, but, unlike the hon. Gentleman, we accept the need to keep their contribution in perspective. The hon. Gentleman is aware that the railways carry 7 per cent. of our freight and 8 per cent. of our passengers. We want to see those percentages grow and we are giving substantial backing to that end. Even if those percentages doubled--that would require huge investment and cause huge problems--it would still mean that 86 per cent. of our freight and 84 per cent. of our passengers would use other means of transport.

We recognise the contribution that the railways can make, but, unlike the Opposition, we are not obsessed about that. We are not unbalanced in our attitude to the railways. We see the railways as an important contribution towards solving our transport problems, but we do not consider them as the answer to those problems--that is the impression that the hon. Gentleman gives the whole time.

Mr. Snape : Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the percentages quoted are typically misleading and are, unfortunately, the sort of statistics that have emanated from the Department of Transport for too many years? The figures on freight include local deliveries, milk floats and all sorts of deliveries that are carried on the road, with which the railways would not and could not compete. We are talking about the contribution that rail freight could make at the heaviest end of the freight market over long distances. Given the right hon. Gentleman's palpable ignorance, he should be told that as his Department has, in the past 10 years, twice increased lorry weights and once increased lorry speeds, it is not surprising that the rail freight business is now facing a financial crisis.

Mr. Parkinson : Even if we doubled the percentages for rail freight and rail passengers, 86 per cent. of our freight and 84 per cent. of our passengers would still travel by other means of transport. Those figures are accepted and are comparable with the figures for other countries.

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Mr. Alistair Darling (Edinburgh, Central) rose

Mr. Parkinson : I shall not give way as I want to press on. My second criticism of the Opposition is their reluctance

Mr. Adley : Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Parkinson : No, not at the moment.

My second criticism of the Opposition is their reluctance to say anything good about this country and anything bad about others. The implication is that Britain in general and British rail in particular are totally out of step with other countries.

Recently I was looking at Railway Gazette International and I read about a railway system that is looking to reorganise itself. The article said :

"The chosen management matrix mirrors British Rail's sector structure of five businesses that has stood the acid test of survival in a fully deregulated transport environment The changes spring from a management audit by four consultants completed last September and concluded that insufficient attention was being paid to economic realities, that trains were run with little concern for profit". That railway organisation, which is looking to model itself on British Rail, is SNCF. It has decided that it must move towards an organisation similar to British Rail and to start to put economies first.

I also read about another railway company much admired by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley). It has appointed a commission to look at the intractable problem of the long-term financial stability of its railways. We are told :

"The model chosen has leanings towards the business sector approach pioneered by British Rail".

The article said of that much admired railway system :

"Can it be that"

the chairman's team

"is at last getting a hold on the dinosaur?"

That is what is happening in the German railway system. The French and German railway systems do not regard British Rail as a joke, but are modelling their management structures on it.

The European Commission does not think that the Government's transport policy is wrong. We are in the process of creating a common market in transport and in road, rail, air, and sea transport Britain is taking the lead in promoting liberalisation. A vital part of the Commission's transport policy is the removal of subsidies that distort competition while recognising their acceptability for social reasons in special circumstances. The Commission is not planning to see Europe with a huge range of heavily subsidised railways. So the Commission is planning to follow precisely the policy of the Government-- [Interruption.] --of eliminating subsidy and concentrating it on areas where there are special reasons for it.

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