House of Commons Hansard Debates for 25 Jun 1997 (pt 30)

Mr. Alan Clark (Kensington and Chelsea): Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting a special tax for them?

Mr. Livingstone: If Londoners vote to pay the money through their council tax and the business rate to get the transport system that London needs, we will all benefit from that.

Since the abolition of the GLC, the big difference in the past 15 years has been the change in the business community's opinion. Once, it bitterly opposed any increase in the rate; now, its representatives often lead the demand for more investment in public transport, because they recognise the impact of a bad, congested London transport system on their profitability and competitiveness. There is an emerging consensus between Londoners and the business community in London that they would be prepared to pay for a transport system that would make living in London a lot better and make trading in London more attractive and a greater source of profits.

I do not want to speak for too long, because I know that another Opposition Member must be called before the winding-up speeches. I have never really understood my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), when he has gone on, year after year, about the West Lothian question. Sometimes that has tried my patience, but as I listened to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, who represents a Scottish constituency, announcing that we cannot opt for a policy of tax and spend, irrespective of what Londoners think, I began to understand what my hon. Friend has gone on about. It strikes me as bizarre that a Member representing Scotland can, as Minister of Transport, tell Londoners what they can and cannot have, while Members representing London are about to be denied the right to have any say about the transport policies of Scotland.

My party must quickly work out the solution to that problem, because that type of contradiction will come up again and again. Imagine what unscrupulous, cynical, populist politicians could do with it. They could stir up anger against the Labour Government. Just 20 years ago, the National Front got 5 per cent. of the vote in London. It would be easy to run a campaign arguing that Londoners were denied a voice and that Ministers from outside our city were telling them what they could and could not do.

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There is a vital and urgent need to establish an elected authority for London and to pass on to it responsibility for decisions about transport. It would be directly accountable to London and its decisions would not be filtered through Ministers who do not represent London constituencies.

I took part in GLC delegations to members of the previous Labour Government, and we often encountered a strong anti-London feeling. It was felt that it was all so easy down here and that we did not know about the real poverty in Newcastle and Liverpool. In response, the GLC and the London Boroughs Association--it was a cross-party effort--arranged for delegations of councillors from those areas to visit the east end, the most deprived part of London, to see the scale of poverty.

The House and the Government must wake up to the fact that the greatest poverty in the country is found here, in the capital city. This capital city, however, sustains the rest of the country by exporting its wealth. London, with the greatest concentration of poverty in the country, and a disastrous public transport system that is overcrowded and breaking down, is bled dry to sustain other parts of the country. Londoners are denied the right to invest properly in our own city.

I described my right hon. Friend's presentation as commanding, but I do not have the slightest doubt that we are waffling around in the middle. There are just two ways forward: we must either increase revenue from taxation in one form or another to pay for the modernisation of the tube network or privatise the tube network. There is no middle way. Some sort of semi-privatisation may be dressed up in other terms, but I remind those on the Government Front Bench that they printed 1 million leaflets that promised that, on the Friday after the election, the threat of tube privatisation would be lifted. We cannot possibly go back on that commitment.

We could privatise the tube and we could pay for that investment by reducing off-peak services and by greatly increasing fares in the long term. No business man will come along and just give Londoners a massive subsidy to modernise the tube without expecting his money back and a substantial profit on that investment. That is why it would be better to tax and spend. It is bad enough that we heard banal platitudes during the election campaign, when trying to seduce the voters, but they are not worthy of a Government who have responsibility for running a country.

This country is one of the most undertaxed in the western world. Of the 15 members of the European Union, only Portugal taxes less than we do. It is a divisive issue here, because the level of tax on the individual is painful, but corporation tax is virtually voluntary. With the election behind us, we must stop the nonsense and start telling the British people the truth. If one wants a decent tube network, decent hospitals and schools, taxes must be increased to pay for that. I will have a debate about where those taxes should fall, but it is nonsense to deny Londoners the right to choose for themselves how they pay for their public transport system.

6.18 pm

Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood): As I listened to the seductive tones of the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) and the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield

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(Sir N. Fowler), whom I welcome back to the Opposition Front Bench, I almost believed that the good old days were back. The hon. Member for Brent, East made a speech of candour and intellectual honesty on a subject on which he is an authority. How refreshing that was and how it contrasted with the ersatz performance of the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge), which went on far too long and which turned the debate almost into a soliloquy.

Luckily, we had the pleasant interlude of the distinguished maiden speech of the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Efford), who clearly does not need to do the knowledge before speaking on transport in London. His cheerful banter pleased everyone in the House, and he manifestly has a sense of history. He was felicitous in his name dropping, as witnessed by his reference to his distinguished predecessor, who did a runner for the coast--undoubtedly agism is not rife in Worthing, West. We are fortunate in having such a knowledgeable and courteous Member of Parliament as the hon. Gentleman.

I speak as the sole Tory survivor in the whole of west London--

Mr. Alan Clark: My entire constituency is in the "W" postal district.

Mr. Wilkinson: I am speaking of the suburbs--they do exist.

In the general election campaign, three issues came up: schools and the quality of education; hospitals and the quality of the national health service; and the future of London Underground and the quality of its services. In its campaign, Labour gave the impression to a somewhat gullible electorate--in which I include even those of my own esteemed electors who, unlike hardened veterans such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Clark) and myself, had not endured periods of socialist administration in their political lifetime--that within a short period education would dramatically improve; hospitals would no longer suffer ward closures, diminution in the number of beds or extension of waiting lists; and, without privatisation, a great deal of extra money would magically go into the London underground system, to the benefit of the long-suffering travelling public.

I remind the House that my own constituents are deeply dependent on the London underground system. There is a rail alternative to which people can turn in the event of a strike on the underground: there are two railway stations on the Chiltern line at West Ruislip and South Ruislip, which run services into Marylebone. Otherwise, one has only one's car, and my constituents who travel by car to London, to the airport or to other places of work have a terrible job getting through the interminable jams. A really efficient London underground system is therefore essential for those in our part of north-west London.

The jury is out on the Labour Government's policy on the matter. Yesterday, after the Prime Minister's statement about the Denver summit, I raised the question of what Labour would do about the London underground. The Prime Minister was promising that, by means of its participation in an integrated transport strategy, the United Kingdom would play its part in the European Union's reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 15 per cent. by 2010. I suggested that we could therefore expect vastly greater investment in London transport, in order to get

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more people off the roads and into the tube system. I was promised a review and there is to be a White Paper on the integrated transport strategy, but--to concentrate the Labour Government's mind--I remind the House that by May next year we are to have borough elections in London. The electorate of London will be casting their judgment on the progress that Labour has made in improving, among other things, London transport.

I want to emphasise two projects for the future--both are of great importance to my constituents and of strategic importance. The first and the one that is more familiar to hon. Members is the crossrail project, which is of great importance for London's transport and for transport from beyond London into the centre and out to Essex. One arm comes down from Aylesbury, the other goes eastward from Reading, through Paddington, the City of London and Liverpool Street and on to Stratford and Essex. It would be a new high-speed transport system, which would immeasurably alleviate the problems endured by my constituents.