REGULATION OF RAILWAYS. (Hansard, 27 March 1928)

Mr. MIDDLETON

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Railway Regulation Acts; and for other purposes relating thereto. The object of the Bill will be to increase the statutory obligations now laid upon the railway companies. I propose in three short Clauses that these obligations shall be stated. The first Clause will make it compulsory on railway companies 13 provide third-class sleeping accommodation where first-class sleeping accommodation is already provided. The second Clause will provide that return tickets shall be available at any time. The third Clause will make compulsory the provision of automatic locks on railway carriage doors.

In regard to sleeping accommodation, I hope the proposal will elicit the friendly interest of hon. Members on the benches opposite, as I know it will hon. Members on this side of the House. I may be told later on that the reason why the railway companies cannot provide third-class sleepers is that they do not pay. My answer would be that they have never tried them. I believe that if we had third-class sleepers it would not only meet a great need of the travelling public, but it would save a great deal of time on the part of people who now travel. In order to carry out the business of -the country there is always a flow of travellers 272 between long distance points in Great Britain. If you take the 7 o'clock train from Aberdeen, it means that a traveller by that train does not reach London until 12 hours later. During the journey he cannot sleep because he is constantly awakened for his ticket, and usually he is in a crowded third-class compartment. The railway group in this House, including the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) might look with a friendly eye upon this proposal, and if they have any doubt as to the discomfort of third-class travelling, I would invite the right hon. Baronet to share the compartment of my hon. Friends from Glasgow on one of the occasions that they have to make the journey from that city to London. Though he might be kept awake by the political theories of my hon. Friends, he would discover by the time he got to London that there was a case for providing sleeping accommodation for people who have to use third-class carriages. I believe that the Great Western train from Plymouth last Monday night left Plymouth with only half the first-class sleeping accommodation occupied. There were many people in the third-class carriages who would have been glad of the opportunity to pay the sleeping fee if they had had the accommodation.

The second point relates to the immoral action of the railway companies in robbing people of their fares when they do not use their return tickets. These return tickets are issued under all kinds of conditions. If you take a short railway journey the day, the return ticket is only available for the same day. In other cases a longer time is given, but in all cases the railway companies say that in the event of that ticket not being used, they will not recognise any obligation upon them to return the fare. [HON. MEMBERS: "Not so!"] I have a copy of the Regulations here, and I am certain that that is so. That means that the railway companies are not content with keeping your money without paying any interest on it, but they will not recognise any obligation to the man who has paid his fare, to have his contract carried out. The third point., relates to the necessity of providing some security against the facility with which railway carriage doors are opened during a journey. During the last week or so we have had one or two examples of that. I am told that the reason why no auto- 273 matic appliance has been adopted is because the inventors cannot elicit the interest and attention of the railway companies. I am told that there is already an automatic appliance on the market which automatically locks a railway carriage door when the train is in motion, and automatically releases the door when the train stops.

These three much-needed reforms, which I propose to embody in this Bill, will mee[...], I hope, not only with a friendly reception by hon. Members, but will encourage the Government to provide facilities later on for passing the Bill as a non-contentious or a non-party Measure, because it affects all classes. It is high time that the railway companies, which have had granted to them a great monopoly by the nation, should recognise that they have obligations to discharge to the community in return for the monopoly that. the community has given to them. I hope, therefore, that the House will give me the First Reading of this Bill.