HC Deb 30 July 1959 vol 610 cc777-84

4.31 p.m.

Mr. L. M. Lever (Manchester, Ardwick)

The last words of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power in the previous debate were that we should ensure that our countryside is not spoilt. But it is equally important that the citizens should have an opportune of full access to the countryside. I refer particularly to the beautiful Peak District. All those who know Derbyshire, and the rich beauty which is unsurpassed in any other part of the world, know that at the present time its beauty spots are readily accessible to a large section of industrial Britain in the West Riding of Yorkshire and in Manchester and the surrounding districts.

I wish to remind the House, and sometimes it is too readily forgotten, that within a radius of fifty miles of the City of Manchester there live almost one-third of the population of this country. About 15 million people live within that radius and one can readily understand the congested conditions in which they live and the bad housing conditions which they have to endure. Many of them have few opportunities of going further afield than their own Peak District. There have been times when that district was inaccessible. There was a great fight for the right of the public to visit Kinder Scout. It was won and has resulted in much joy to members of ramblers' associations and to our youth who derive so much benefit from visits to it and by walking around those parts. Obviously, in order that such excursions can be made, it is of the greatest importance that access by rail should be possible.

Today, there is a train service to Sheffield from Chinley. On weekdays, there are nine trains; on Saturdays there are 12, including two in summer only; on Sundays there are seven. From Hope to Sheffield there are ten trains. From Sheffield, there are nine on weekdays, 14 on Saturdays, including two specials, and 10 on Sundays, including three to Hope only. On Sundays, there is one from Hope to Chinley, in summer only. Edale has no bus service. While the Minister may say that the Northwestern Road Car Company runs express services from Manchester to Sheffield via Castleton and Hope, this takes place only in summer, and there are about three each way.

The stations to which I am referring are Edale, Hope, Bamford, Hathersage, Birch Vale, Hayfield, and we fear that, if those stations are closed, Chinley as well as Miller's Dale will follow. Many thousands of men and women of all ages who now enjoy the beautiful Peak District will find the area completely cut off and inaccessible to them unless these stations are kept open.

British Railways will say that they have been losing money and must close stations here and there. One can quite understand a businesslike approach to the whole problem and their efforts to cut out unnecessary stations and stations which are losing money. But it is wrong to go from one extreme to the other simply because the railways have been losing money. Lines have been kept open and stations have been maintained, but now there is a move in the other direction which will cause serious havoc not merely in local communications and access to places of beauty but also in its effect upon the health of the community in the very heavily populated area to which I have referred.

While we understand that the railways must pay, and we all want them to pay, the Minister must remember that the railways should provide a social amenity. Moreover, if certain stations are not a paying proposition at the present time, I would suggest, none the less—this has been my own experience and the experience of many—that, if a proper service were arranged and organised, even those stations which are losing money now would not lose money and would be able to pay their way.

I am making a very solemn plea to the Minister not only on behalf of the local authorities in the area but on behalf of the Peak Board also. The Peak Board controls and administers the National Park. We did not make the area a National Park in order that it should remain derelict and isolated, inaccessible to the people. We made it a National Park so that people could enjoy it. Now, the British Transport Commission is proposing to close these stations, and the result will bring much unhappiness and a great deal of unrest in the area.

This is so serious a matter that I felt that, even at this late stage of the Session, I should raise it in the House. It may well be that this is the last Adjournment debate not only of this Session but of this Parliament. In our debates, we show a lively sense of what is going on all over the world—no week has exemplified that better than the present one—but, at the same time, we should all learn to know and love our own country and recognise that, even on our own doorstep, there are beautiful places which are there for us to enjoy if only they are accessible to us.

People rightly come from all over the world to the Peak District. Yet if the youth and older people of this country are to be deprived of the opportunity to visit these parts a very serious situation will ensue. I appeal to the Minister to give us an assurance that, in spite of the sorry position of the railways financially, there will not be a move in the other direction to close stations lock, stock and barrel, thus denuding the country of some of the opportunities which it at present enjoys.

I hope that my words will not fall on deaf ears. I speak not only for myself, industrial Manchester and indeed industrial Lancashire, but for ramblers' associations, youth associations and local authorities in the area which feel so deeply that they will be deprived of something which has given them health and happiness.

I should like to quote portions of one of the many letters that I have received: Dear Alderman Lever, Though not a constituent of yours I would like to write to say how pleased I am to see that you are to raise in the House on Thursday the question of the proposed closing of the Chinley—Edale—Grindleford line. Surely this route to Sheffield can scarcely be called a branch line and its gives access along the Hope Valley to what is surely some of the loveliest scenery in the Peak District. It is a most picturesque line. The railways say it is not well patronised but it would be better used if they would put on a more convenient train service. There is a train from Manchester to Stockport between 8 and 9 a.m."— he refers to weekdays— which is not convenient for everyone. After this there is nothing till the train which leaves Stockport at 12.9, much too late to start one's day. There used to be a train from Stockport at about 11.14 which my wife and I frequently used but this was taken off about 2 years ago. I sent a letter of protest and suggested a diesel service. Surely a more frequent service by light diesel trains would be worth trying". I want to put this proposal most seriously to the Minister. If a diesel car were run with a booking clerk on it, it would enable a service to be maintained and at the same time would not involve the expense to which this particular service has been subject. I believe that there is an example of this on the Western Region which is fulfilling a very useful function and is working quite successfully. I ask the Minister to give serious consideration to this proposal. Until the proposal is worked out in all its detail, will the Minister leave the stations to which I have referred alone and enable the citizens of the North, in particular, to have the opportunity of visiting the Peak District of which we are so rightly proud? This is my plea for the maintenance of these stations.

I want to think you, Mr. Speaker, at the close of this Session of Parliament, for the way in which a human and simple but yet vital problem of concern to the lives and happiness of so many people has been ventilated in this great Mother of Parliaments. I am sure that an assurance from the Minister will fortify us in the future in the knowledge that the British Transport Commission will not ruthlessly cut down its service but will enable our citizens to enjoy life as it should be enjoyed.

4.45 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Richard Nugent)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. L. M. Lever) on securing the last Adjournment in this Session to raise the important matter of the proposed closing of this railway. It has become almost a tradition that I should reply to the last Adjournment of each Session and you, Mr. Speaker, have listened to these debates on a number of occasions. It is not unsuitable that we should be talking about the delights of this beautiful National Park in The High Peak when we ourselves are about to leave the tumultuous life of Parliament and, perhaps, have opportunities ourselves to enjoy the beauties and pleasures of the countryside.

I am the first to sympathise with those who enjoy such things, because I am among those who enjoy going for a walk in the countryside and find my natural home there. So I very much sympathise with the plea of the hon. Member for Ardwick for the access that the railway service now provides for the vast urban population which lives in Manchester and its environs and uses the railway to reach this lovely district.

The position, as I understand it, is that the London Midland Region issued a Press statement last May saying that it was considering the closure of the Chinley—Grindleford line, 21 miles in length, among many other closures that were being considered. The line has a fairly light service with an average of about 10 trains a day each way. I wish that I could respond to the hon. Member's plea, but he will understand that this is primarily a management matter for the Transport Commission and that Parliament has laid down a statutory procedure which the Commission follows whenever it wishes to close a rail service.

In the 1947 Act, a procedure was laid down that when the Commission wishes to close a railway, and makes a formal proposal to the area transport users' consultating committee, it must be considered by them. There is publication of the formal intention and objections can be heard.

Mr. L. M. Lever

There will be plenty of those.

Mr. Nugent

Objections can be heard by the transport users' consultative committee, which then makes up its mind what recommendation to make. That goes to the Central Transport Consultative Committee, which considers the report and can approve, modify or reject it, as sometimes happens. That committee makes a recommendation to my right hon. Friend and sends a copy to the Transport Commission. That is the safeguard laid down by Parliament to ensure that, as far as is humanly possible, the closures that the Commission thinks are necessary from time to time should be made in the national interest and not in a haphazard way.

I would only add what I said last night on the transport users' consultative committees. They are independent bodies and comprise representatives of local authorities, industry, the farming community, trade unions, and so on, public-spirited men and women who give their time to do the job. It is a difficult, invidious job to hear these proposals and we should be grateful to these people for what they are doing in the public interest. We can, however, be sure that they are independent. Because they represent the consumer or traveller interest, they will take a fair view of a proposal and will not agree to it unless they are convinced that it is right and inevitable.

I think that I should not go too far into the general position of the Transport Commission because we spent all yesterday debating it, but I believe that it would be true to say that, although there was a Division, the Commission's broad policy of modernisation and rationalisation receives the support of both sides of the House. Rationalisation, of course, means cutting out the uneconomic services, and inevitably there are many of them in a system which was laid down in the last century when railway transport, practically speaking, was the only form of transport.

It inevitably means that many of these rural services and penetrating lines will have to be closed if the Commission is to have any chance at all of meeting the obligations which Parliament lays down upon it to achieve solvency taking one year with another. The hon. Member for Ardwick, with his great experience of commercial matters, acknowledged that the Commission must do that. This is one of the situations where practically everybody who spoke yesterday approved the general principle of rationalisation and then made an exception of the railway going through his own constituency.

The programme that lies before us is a truly terrifying one for a Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Transport. I do not know how many Adjournment debates I have answered on this subject in the last couple of years, but it is a good many. The prospect for the next four years is that there will be many times more closures and I can foresee that I shall be at the Despatch Box regularly every night answering the pleas of hon. Members about closures like this.

Mr. Marcus Lipton (Brixton)

After the next election?

Mr. Nugent

I feel quite confident, as no doubt the hon. Member does, about the outcome.

The Commission is now struggling with a vast deficit, which was £89 million last year, and therefore it is obliged to look most carefully at every single line which is not making a profit. But I should like to leave no doubt about one matter. These proposals come from the railways, and no railwayman would ever close a line which had any prospect at all of paying its way. On this occasion, I believe that the Commission is considering dieselisation. Whether or not it will be a light diesel car of the type the hon. Member described, I do not know. The Commission has only a few of them and they are experimental, but I am certain that it will try anything that can be done if the traffic potential is there.

I had a very similar plea last night for the rail service to Keswick in the Lake District. It is a matter of grave anxiety that the communications to these national beauty spots should be kept open. On the other hand, the railways have their obligations and unless the traffic potential is there they have no alternative but to consider closures. I must remind hon. Members of that background, but I am quite certain that neither the Commission nor indeed we ourselves would approve of a policy which was stripping the railway services and depriving the national life of something that is essential.

The obligation on the Commission is clear—to provide the nation with a modernised railway service that will meet the economic needs of the nation—and we as a Government are backing that massively with the finance necessary to carry it out. The Commission is already showing every sign of making a very good job of it. I cannot, therefore, comment on the merits of the case because if the Commission proceeds to make a proposal to the transport users' consultative committee the committee's proposal must go through the statutory procedure and will, in due course, reach my right hon. Friend. He will then consider it, but I should like to leave the hon. Member in no doubt at all that the transport users' consultative committee is a responsible and independent body and that it will give most sympathetic consideration to the points which the hon. Member has so eloquently put before us today. I am sure that the committee will also read the speech which the hon. Member has just made to the House.