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Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): The right hon. Gentleman said that he had ruled out privatisation because it would take too long to resolve the problems that he perceives with the network. Will he now announce the timetable for his deliberations, and assure the House that the Government will provide rapid and effective solutions?
Dr. Strang: I shall come to that point. It is not just a question of time: we reject the wholesale privatisation of London Underground because it would be a re-run of what has occurred with other privatisations. Assets would be sold off at disgraceful knock-down prices. We cannot produce solutions overnight.
Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead): My right hon. Friend is right to point to the Conservative Government's legacy to London Underground. I have also seen correspondence from London Underground bosses concerning the Jubilee line overspend, which could affect services and investment in the existing network. My right hon. Friend is correct to establish a proper review of all future investment in London Underground. Will he consider also the specific problem caused by the Jubilee line overspend and its effect on the existing network? Will he contemplate short-term solutions to that problem?
Dr. Strang: My hon. Friend is right: we must address that problem. A crisis is looming on the underground. The Jubilee line cost over-run is so great that it is damaging the basic investment that is required in the fabric of the network.
As I have said, we cannot produce solutions overnight to problems that the Conservatives failed to solve in 18 years in government--indeed, they made the situation worse. We shall appoint financial advisers to help us assess the options. We hope that they will be able to provide valuable advice about potential options. I confirm also that the review of options will be taken forward as quickly as is reasonably practicable. The review will also draw on the views and the expertise of London Transport.
Options for the future of the underground will be advanced in parallel with the work that we are doing on the integrated transport policy White Paper, which will be published next year. We expect the financial advisers' options to be on Ministers' desks within three or four months. In the longer term, an integrated transport policy for London will be the responsibility of the Greater
London authority. We shall publish a Green Paper on that authority next month, so that Londoners can have their say. Whatever the future holds for London Underground, the review of options will take full account of our proposals for the Greater London authority and its transport responsibilities.
Whatever options the Government may take up in order to secure greater investment in the underground, I make it clear that our overriding priority will be passenger safety. I believe that London Underground's management give the safety of passengers and staff the highest priority. That is absolutely right. As a result, the underground has had an enviable safety record in recent years.
Whatever happens to London Underground in future, it is vital that safety continues to be of paramount importance and is not compromised in any way. This is a very important issue in our review of options, and we shall ensure that the Health and Safety Executive and Her Majesty's railway inspectorate are fully involved. I pay tribute to London Underground staff, who do a very good job in trying circumstances.
Sir Norman Fowler:
Before the right hon. Gentleman moves on to another subject, will he set out the options under consideration? He keeps talking about them, but he will not tell us what they are. May we assume that the options published in The Guardian and in other newspapers are among those that he and the Government are considering? Is he considering the option that companies be responsible for the track and, conceivably, that other companies should run the trains on different services?
Dr. Strang:
The Government have ruled out the option of wholesale privatisation--I make that absolutely clear. However, we believe that the private finance initiative option in relation to "Power", for example, has the potential for success. There is also the option of many more private finance initiatives. We have not ruled out the option of a private equity stake in the capital of the underground, but that would be on terms very different from those proposed under the Conservatives with their privatisation measures.
Yes, there is a range of options, and we expect our financial advisers to come up with options that perhaps we had not even contemplated. That is why we are paying them, and we are paying them a good deal less than the Conservative Government paid their advisers, because we shall be using them for only a few months.
Dr. Strang:
I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman, but for the last time in this debate. As he has said, many hon. Members wish to speak in a short debate.
Sir Norman Fowler:
I intervene to help the debate.
Will the Minister confirm that all the options that were set out in the leaked draft letter from the Department of Transport are being considered and are on the table?
Dr. Strang:
Frankly, I do not know anything about the leaked document that the right hon. Gentleman is talking about. I think that The Guardian is an excellent newspaper, but the truth is that there is a range of options, as well as other options that have never been put on paper.
We, the Labour Government, have not been in power for eight weeks, while the Conservative Governments had 18 years. I say to the Conservatives: just hold your horses. If our record at the end of this Parliament is anything like the record of our predecessors, we shall have failed. That can be said for sure.
The fact that we are having to consider public-private partnership options for the future of the underground system is no reflection on the staff, but is due to consistent under-investment in the core network--which we are determined to address--during the terms of office of Conservative Governments.
The Government's approach to the underground is in clear contrast to that of the Conservative party. We are determined to modernise the tube, for the benefit of the people and industry in London and beyond. We are acting now to secure the necessary investment.
The Conservatives, led by dogma, threatened the people of London with their wholesale privatisation plans. Public assets were to be sold off at bargain-basement prices, much-needed investment was to be delayed, and the core public responsibilities of the underground were to be threatened.
Mr. Eric Pickles (Brentwood and Ongar):
Will the Minister give way?
Dr. Strang:
No, I shall not give way again.
On 1 May, the Conservatives' dogmatic wholesale privatisation was given a resounding thumbs down by the people of London.
The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield no doubt came to the House with the idea of embarrassing the Government over recent disclosures in the media about our plans for London Underground. We have nothing to be embarrassed about. We are trying to find a practical solution to a problem that we inherited from him and others. We are not taking an ideological approach. Instead, we are being open-minded in a search for the best option. We are being entirely consistent with our manifesto commitment.
The London Underground carries as many passengers each year as the entire national rail network. It is the oldest underground railway in the world, and it is still vital both to London's economy and to the millions of people who live and work in London. But we are not getting the full potential from such an enormous national asset. The Government are determined to realise that potential through sensible public-private partnerships, not an ideologically driven wholesale privatisation.
Mr. Peter Brooke (Cities of London and Westminster):
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me as the first London Member to speak in the debate.
As one enters St Stephen's entrance to the Palace, on the right-hand wall there is a map of my constituency, which was donated in 1932 by the underground railways, though not in their later stylistic cartography. I have never had a prior opportunity to thank them for it, and I take the opportunity now. As a passenger, I pay tribute to the management and staff of the London underground.
This debate is being held on behalf of all Londoners, and it offers a rare, medium-term opportunity for genuine unity among London Members of Parliament, despite the Minister's speech. I speak as a current denizen of the District and Circle lines and a veteran of the Central and Northern lines. Londoners deserve more from the underground than they receive.
What is needed is well known, and the 750,000 people who work daily in my constituency know what we must achieve if we are to preserve London's competitiveness, quite apart from improving our quality of life. Several years ago, the City corporation funded a pulling together of research into London's transport needs, and London First has followed up that research.
I hope that there is agreement on funding and investment needs. We know what the deficit was 10 years ago, and we know that four sevenths of that deficit have been paid in the past decade, partly through central Government funding and partly through the profitability of the system. Three sevenths of that deficit remain, however, and the unpredictability and oscillation--in this I am critical of the previous Government--of decisions on the funding of investment in the underground has made the removal of the deficit more difficult. The House will know that current desiderata, some of which have been alluded to today, have had to be deferred this year.
I hope that it will not be a matter of controversy if I say that a Greater London council mark 2 will not be a solution, given that the deficit was built up during the GLC mark 1 under both parties. Any GLC would still leave the underground subject to Treasury control. I also hope that it will not be a matter of controversy if I say that the deficit relates to capital investment, which will in turn ease the pressure on fares through improved facilities. The money should not be used for reducing fares in the first instance.
I recognise that the benefits of some of the investment will be invisible to the general public, although constituents in Pimlico will be grateful if inaudibility could be added. Anything that the Minister who replies to the debate can say about the problem of the Pimlico noise will be very welcome.
I hope that there is agreement between hon. Members on both sides of the House on many of these matters. God moves in a mysterious way, and we may be at a crux. Privatisation, as proposed by the Opposition, and private-public arrangements, as proposed by the Government, may offer a sufficient meeting of minds to solve the problem of funding in the interests of all Londoners, although I acknowledge that the Government's amendment is discouraging in that respect.
I take comfort from earlier developments. I am not sure whether the Government's espousal of Conservative policies is matched by an understanding of Conservative principles under which the past informs the future, but the circumstances of the formation of the London passenger transport board encourage me.
In the 1920s, underground railways investment had been heavily funded through the trade facilities legislation, the provisions of which included Treasury guarantees. When Labour came to power in 1929, with the grandfather of the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) as Minister of Transport, a whole cornucopia of paradoxes developed. Herbert Morrison's plans for the London passenger transport board specifically excluded representatives of organised labour from sitting on it. In that era, trade unions played a smaller part in Labour transport policy than they do today.
Just as paradoxically, London county council, which was then under Conservative control, resisted the idea of a board, on the ground that there were no places on it for local authorities. When the Labour Government fell in 1931, it was assumed that the Bill would fall with it, but it was carried forward under the National Government. In the 1920s, Herbert Morrison had said before taking office:
Let me quote a passage from a speech by Lord Ashfield that was quoted in the House of Lords by Lord Banbury in opposing the Bill. I hope that I shall be allowed to quote verbatim from the dead. He said:
"In the direction of his undertakings, Lord Ashfield"--
who was the chairman--
"had incorporated a considerable degree of public spirit for a capitalist concern. From the narrow point of view of Labour politics, I could almost have wished it were otherwise, for in all the disputations about London passenger transport policy this fact had made it harder to fight the combine."
In that context, it is worth remarking that, for all the good that flowed from the London passenger transport board, some of that attributed to it had occurred while the underground was still in the private sector. I refer to Charles Holden's design for 55 Broadway, and, perhaps even more relevant, his distinguished design for Arnos Grove station. Morden station also dates from as early as 1926. Much of the credit for that distinction must go to Frank Pick, Lord Ashfield's managing director, who belonged to both the public and the private eras and whose personal shyness was matched by a private cultural hinterland that enriched London Underground through its style.
"In recent years, the suburbs have tended to become self-contained. The standard of shops has been improved, and luxurious cinemas have been built, so that there is not the same need or incentive to go to the centre of London for shopping or entertainment. Then the motor car has grown to be an important feature, and there are now well over 200,000 private cars registered in the London traffic area. They carry not only the family, but also neighbours and friends, and therefore withdraw more people from the public means of conveyance than at first sight would seem possible. The parking places and garages in the centre of London are filled with these cars. The theatre traffic, which at one time was carried upon the railways and omnibuses, has now largely passed to the private car."
In the context of present transport policy in London, it is worth quoting further the comment made on that speech by Lord Banbury of Southam. He said:
"How can this public Board alter that? These are factors which remain."--[Official Report, House of Lords, 1 March 1933; Vol. 86, c. 936.]
The historians of London Transport said of that intervention that it
"was one of the most sensible observations made by any contributor in the whole long course of the detailed, lively and sometimes acrimonious debate that culminated, for the time being, in the establishment of the London Passenger Transport Board."
25 Jun 1997 : Column 873
That whole collaborative narrative encourages me to think that we can achieve something similar today. Not for nothing is "underground" one of those rare words which, although not palindromes, feature three opening letters that are the same as the last three. That seems a good omen for the two sides of the House, which approach the subject from opposite directions.
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