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Lord Davies of Oldham: Once again, I am grateful to my noble friend for his amendments. He will forgive me if I am fairly dismissive about a number of them so that I can concentrate on the one that the noble Lord,
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Lord Bradshaw, says is of significance; that is, Amendment No. 24. I will be dismissive of Amendments Nos. 20, 21, 27, 28 and 29 because my noble friend is well aware that when we talk about railway services, we mean the services for the carriage of passengers and goods by railway. I recognise that the purpose of the amendments is to draw attention to a proper regard to the interests of the freight industry, on which I applaud him. But I have nothing much to add except that, of course, we recognise that freight is integral to the concept of the railway services that we provide.
Therefore, the real point is the one that my noble friend addresses in Amendment No. 24, to which the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, spoke; that is, the way in which those objectives are met as regards freight. Probably, the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, would want me to discourse a little more than that across the whole range of the railway, but I shall stay with freight. The direct question asked by my noble friend was reinforced by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw; namely, what about the high-level output statement? What will it contain?
First, it will say what the Secretary of State wants to buy from the railway as a whole. But, of course, it will take account of freight and, particularly in terms of axel weights and loading gauge and so forth, the capacity of the network, which will be developed in discussion with Network Rail with a government view of the demand on the railway system, and, of course, taking account of the freight utilisation strategy.
I noted an element of disparagement about the utilisation strategies a moment ago, which, perhaps, I did not address as bullishly as is sometimes my wont. Utilisation strategies have an important and very significant role to play. The freight utilisation strategy was discussed with Network Rail at a meeting on Tuesday. The intention is that it will cover demand for rail freight paths across the network, strategies for alternative routing and integrating freight services that cross more than one of Network Rail's strategic routes, which is the agenda that my noble friend would have sought had he been present at the meeting. He may have been, but I will not go into that! Certainly, he will recognise the significance of those points and will be aware that they cover the issues on which he is most concerned.
It is envisaged that the development of the freight utilisation strategy will be linked to the development of a study for long-distance passenger operators who face similar but separate issues. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is in order because they obviously interlink. In particular, the strategic question of paths across the country has the greatest significance to passenger services and freight.
To my noble friend, I say that I recognise the thrust of his amendments. I want to be not dismissive but accepting of the fact that he was keen to emphasise that some of his amendments were directed to ensuring that freight was four square with passenger services in terms of the overall consideration of the Bill. I give the fullest assurance on that. I want to indicate that steps
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are already being taken to respond to exactly the points that he makes about the necessity for recognising the major requirements that must be taken into consideration in the developing of the railway in terms of meeting the needs of freight.
Lord Berkeley: I am grateful to my noble friend for that response about the passenger and freight balance. A third issue arises in Amendment No. 25 and other amendments but I shall not go into too much detail. It is important to keep the network open for trains to run. Previously, many of us have said that Network Rail and Railtrack before it preferred to close the network. First, it was easier to dig it up and relay the track or the signalling and, secondly, the safest railway is one on which no trains run.
That is something of an exaggeration, but during the past few years we have noticed longer possessions for maintenance. That sometimes mean that the last passenger trains in the evenings do not run and are replaced by buses. We have already discussed weekend closures and the West Coast Main Line and thereafter.
I want to recall for the benefit of the Committee that in September a number of us, some officials and some of my rail freight members went to Canada to look at the Canadian National Railway and its infrastructure. I was struck by the CN's total commitment to keeping the railway open for trains. It regularly changed a set of points, with signalling, in four hours, but we in this country take four days. There is a great deal to learn from the need and ability to keep the railway open.
It is much easier to close it for long periods of maintenance and one can produce all kinds of statistics showing how much more efficient it is. However, running trains, passenger or freight, and the needs of the customers must be balanced. I hope that the Secretary of State in his high-level outputs will make the point to Network Rail that its job is to keep the lines open as well as maintaining them safely and properly. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 21 to 30 not moved.]
Lord Berkeley moved Amendment No. 31:
Page 94, line 5, leave out "determine" and insert "advise the Secretary of State or Scottish Ministers"
The noble Lord said: I am sorry to be hogging the Committee's time today, but this is a different issue. It relates to when we have reached the end of the road and the money for the railways and the Secretary of State's output do not tie up. At page 94, the Bill provides that it is for the Office of Rail Regulation to determine what is to be achieved from the output, given the money available.
In other words, given what money is available and the efficiency the ORR appears to believe Network Rail should deliver, it will decide on the closures, speed restrictions and whatever else will be necessary. It will be the Office of Rail Regulation which will therefore say, "Sorry, mate, all lines north of Edinburgh will be closed"; or, "All lines west of Plymouth and Swansea
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will be closed"; or, "There is a 50 mile-an-hour speed limit on the West Coast Main Line because there is not enough money".
If the provisions are accepted—we hope that that will never happen but we must look at the consequences—some of the decisions will affect passengers and some freight. I look back and reflect on an issue raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, on the first day of Committee in respect of Railtrack and the then Secretary of State. The last Rail Regulator, in his periodic review, maintained that the Strategic Rail Authority did not provide him with the necessary information on which he would price how much money Network Rail needed for the output. So he blamed the SRA until I had to do it myself. That is where this review all started.
4 p.m.
It looks to me as though we are going to repeat this if we are not careful. In other words, the regulator will get the political blame for network closures. I find that rather unfair on an independent regulator. As I put down in Amendment No. 32, the Rail Regulator should appraise the different options that he considers would deliver the output with the money that the Secretary of State is providing. He should then advise the Secretary of State of the various options that he considers possible or feasible, and it should be for the Secretary of State and Ministers to take the decision about closures. That seems to me to be equitable. It is a political decision. The Secretary of State can ignore it, or he can even provide more money if he wants to at the last minute. It seems wrong that an independent regulator should have to take what is potentially a pretty serious political decision. I beg to move.
Lord Bradshaw: The amendment goes to the heart of the Bill. There is a lot in the Bill about closures and a simplified closure procedure. We have to take this seriously, because while we may hope that there will not be many closures, once we have given our agreement to the passage of this Bill it can and will be used to bring those closures about.
I am most anxious in that respect, and I am sure that the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, joins me in that. We must make sure that decisions about railway closures are made by politicians and not sloughed off either to the Office of Rail Regulation—which is something that we all know about but I guess the general public do not know much about—or to local authorities. Neither the PTEs, nor the other local authorities, are anxious to have decisions on closures hung around their neck. The Office of Rail Regulation can give advice and can appraise the options, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, and it can present alternative recommendations; but in the end the decisions on closures must be made by the Secretary of State. I hope that would follow a proper procedure that allows some input from Parliament. Many important closures would need the consent of Parliament.
This is a serious matter, although in amendment form it looks pretty minor. The sorts of closures that I have in mind are the obvious ones, where lines will be
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closed, and where the shop will be shut. We would certainly want a full appraisal. I will come on to the economic, social and other debates in a later amendment. We do not want the sort of closure that I referred to last week, of the stations in Staffordshire, which have been closed by what I can only describe as double-dealing and subterfuge. The SRA has gone forward and put a bus service on, which did not work very well. It has not really replaced the rail service. Lo and behold, not many people are using the bus service, although not many people used the train service either, because it was not very good. It was not the best train service that could be run; it was what happened to be running. Now, we find that the SRA is proposing that those stations should be closed. It has been done in a very underhand manner. In fact, what it does is strangle the demand, put people off, drive them away and then say that no one is using the service. To my mind, that is not the right way to close the service. In fact, it is a dereliction of public duty for which it should be severely reprimanded. Has the Minister any comments on that?
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