HC Deb 26 June 1959 vol 607 cc1651-62

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hughes-Young.]

3.57 p.m.

Major Sir Frank Markham (Buckingham)

I value the privilege of raising a constituency point today, and I believe that all of us who have served in the House for some years feel great pride in the fact that, however busy Parliament may be with international affairs, with colonial affairs or with great questions of defence, there is always time to be found, under your guidance, Mr. Speaker, to raise a constituency grievance.

The grievance I wish to raise affects at least 10,000 of my constituents and many others in adjoining constituencies. The grievance is that the British Transport Commission has made proposals to abandon a dozen railway passenger stations in North Buckinghamshire and another score of stations in adjacent counties. These proposals include the closing down of the Oxford-Bletchley, Bletchley-Cambridge passenger services, the Bedford-Northampton line in its entirety, and, in my constituency alone, the villages or towns of Swanbourne, Winslow, Verney Junction, Marsh Gibbon, Brickhill, Woburn Sands, Fenny Stratford, Castlethorpe, Padbury, Buckingham, Water Stratford and Olney will have no further railway passenger services if the present proposals of the British Transport Commission go through.

The first complaint of my constituents, with which I heartily concur, is that the notice sent out to the Press on 15th May about these proposals calls this total abolition of these local lines a plan for streamlining the passenger services.

It being Four o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Gibson-Watt.]

Sir F. Markham

The British Transport Commission called this part of a long-term plan for streamlining its passenger services in order to provide an overall more reliable service. That is demonstrably untrue. The total abolition of passenger services is not streamlining and it cannot by any degree be called a means of making a more reliable service.

These proposals can only be made for one reason. That is that the British Transport Commission thinks that it can make some saving by closing down the Oxford-Bletchley line, the Bletchley-Cambridge line and various other local lines, including the Bedford-Northampton line. It is very evident from information in my possession, and I believe in the possession of the British Transport Commission, that the abolition of these lines, while it might produce a little saving now, would not mean real saving in the future.

Our contention is that, if the British Transport Commission were to wake up to the opportunities that there are locally for improving services, it would be able to make a paying proposition of these local lines. I should like in this respect to mention that already protests have been made from at least thirty local authorities. Those in my constituency that have already protested include the Buckingham Rural District Council, the Bletchley Urban District Council, Winslow Rural District Council, the Newport Pagnell Rural District Council and the parish councils of Marsh Gibbon, Olney, Wavendon, Castlethorpe, Woburn Sands and Steeple Claydon.

In the case of Steeple Claydon a petition signed by nearly 400 people has been passed to me. In addition Linslade has produced a petition with 116 signatures against the closing of the Dunstable-Luton branch line. There have also been protests or petitions from the National Farmers' Union, the Bletchley Chamber of Trade, Steeple Claydon Women's Institute, the Parents Association of Bletchley, and, to my mind, not least important, the local railwaymen at Bletchley, the Bletchley branch of the National Union of Railwaymen. This is what the N.U.R. Bletchley branch says of these proposals: The Railwaymen of Bletchley are unable by any stretch of the imagination to see where there can be any saving to the Commission to terminate the passenger services between Bletchley and Bedford … They go on to say that if a diesel railcar service were to be provided, this service would not only be remunerative, but there would be a better and speedier service for the public.

They go on to say much more. I wish there were time to repeat the whole of the letter which the general manager of the London Midland Region will have received from Mr. A. E. Grigg, the convener of the meeting. It is one of the most reasoned documents ever to come into my hands from any trade union branch.

It will be seen from all this that, certainly from the local branch of the N.U.R., there are great protests against these closures. The Transport Commission, however, in the document issued to the Press, says that these proposals have already been discussed with the unions concerned. Either that is a blatent lie or it means nothing at all. If it means that these proposals have merely been put before the unions and their opinion has not been asked or considered, I could understand the statement. My belief is that the unions have not seen these documents or proposals. They have given no opinion on them. Therefore, my first question to the Minister is to ask whether the unions agreed to the proposals enumerated in the London Midland Region circular dated 15th May.

I have already had the benefit of talks with the Minister on this subject and I understand that he has no powers of decision on these matters and that all of this must go before the transport users' consultative committees. These committees are suspect. In this House, from time to time, various Members have pointed out that the transport users' consultative committees are regarded as stooges of the British Transport Commission, or, at least, as rubber stamps. The House will remember that it was only on 15th June this year that my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings) made a strong protest against the inadequacy and inefficiency of these transport users' consultative committees.

Over and above all that, this pamphlet entitled "Handbook on Transport Users Consultative Committees", published from the Central Transport Consultative Committee, Bridge Street, London, and bearing no date, itself brings out the point that these transport users' consultative committees are regarded with deep suspicion throughout the country.

The pamphlet goes on to increase that suspicion by saying, first, that these consultative committees are not legal tribunals and are not meant to be". It states, on page 7, that they must not be overburdened with material and that they need not admit the Press to their meetings. It states that even though local councils may be represented by lawyers, they do not have the right to cross-examine and—I fear that this is said almost with a sneer—that they are not … pleaders with the right to cross-examine and display their forensic skill. That means that when these protests come before the transport users' consultative committees, the Transport Commission can put certain facts and statistics and a case, but nobody is allowed to cross-examine. The Commission cannot be challenged as to whether the statistics have been deliberately chosen to meet a given point of view. This makes a mockery of something defended by the Minister of Transport in the House of Commons when he has said that these committees are independent and quasi-judicial tribunals.

I therefore ask the Minister whether the transport users' consultative committee, the London Midland Region or the Commission itself, will provide the protesters—that is, the local authorities, and so on—with the fullest details as to past finances of these railway lines and the individual stations and with particulars of improvements that were to be introduced, such as dieselisation, but which have not yet been carried out owing to lack of time or lack of drive.

My impression is that if in the past these committees have had such information, it has been given to them privately. It has seldom been given to the Press or to protesters. The case of the protesters has been taken formally and the Press has never been admitted to many of the major deliberative sessions.

I should like to know to which transport users' consultative committee these various branch line protests will go. I have already pointed out that there is the Oxford-Bletchley branch line, the Bletchley-Cambridge branch line, the Verney Junction-Brackley branch line, and the Bedford-Northampton branch line, which includes the station at Olney. In addition, there are the main line stations of Castlethorpe and Cheddington. Which transport users' consultative committees will deal with protests relating to these stations?

I should also like to know whether any members of the transport users' consultative committees reside in North Buckinghamshire or the near vicinity. Locally, our impression is that nearly every member of these committees resides so far away that he can have no local knowledge of our particular problems. I have already stated that we do not think that the transport users' consultative committees are independent, although I know that the Minister will probably defend the opposite point of view. We are not so much concerned with whether they are independent, but that the protesters against railway policy should have a real chance of knowing what is said by the railways and that these hearings should not be in camera.

Finally, the area which I have the honour to represent in Parliament, usually known as the Buckingham Division, includes Bletchley, which has doubled its population in the last nine or ten years. It is an area with practically no employment and is very thriving. It is linked with Oxford, and I do not think that any hon. Member will contradict me when I say that Oxford is a thriving area. In addition, Bedford and Northampton are thriving areas. This is one of the industrially growing areas of England where the British Transport Commission should provide better services, instead of cutting out local branch-line services in the area. The Bletchley Gazette of 13th June published figures which showed that the local railway lines do pay. According to figures there given these lines are remunerative, and with dieselisation and other improvements they could be made far more remunerative.

We, therefore, feel that we have a great grievance against the British Transport Commission for wanting to close down these services. We are not satisfied that we shall have a fair hearing through the transport users' consultative committees.

I take the opportunity which you, Mr. Speaker, have afforded me in raising this matter in the House to say that if these branch lines are closed down it will cause grievous damage not only to the amenities of our area by almost completely denuding the area of its railway services; it will also provoke the most grave problems of transport and will create future losses for the British Transport Commission. I therefore hope that we shall have an assurance from the Minister that he will do everything he possibly can to retain these services for the Buckingham division.

4.13 p.m.

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

I must congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Buckingham (Sir F. Markham) on his good fortune in securing the Adjournment to deal with this problem which so gravely affects his constituents. I well know the care and attention which he gives to the interests and convenience of his constituents, and I can understand the anxiety that is felt from what he has told us. Further, the House is aware of my hon. and gallant Friend's personal experience of the railways since he was himself once a railwayman. The saying is, once a railwayman always a railwayman. I have therefore listened with all the more attention to his comments on this very difficult topic of closing down branch tines and other rail services.

I have to confirm that his impression is correct that the British Transport Commission has been considering making these closures, and has issued a Press notice outlining what its intentions are in that area. I am grateful to him for telling me so lucidly and cogently just how this will affect his constituents, and I do accept that it is a serious matter for those who still use these services. I do know that the transport users' consultative committees, despite his qualifications, will give full weight to this aspect when they consider these proposals.

My hon. Friend asked me certain questions. First of all he asked me about the trades unions' attitude to these proposals. In the Press notice the Commission did not say more than it had discussed these with the trades unions. The Commission discusses these proposals with the trades unions not in order to seek their agreement, which it has no obligation to seek, but primarily to cover personnel considerations for the men who would be affected if these closures were made, such matters as, perhaps, the movement of some of the men to other areas, to other duties, and then, exceptionally, in some cases. redundancy, where it occurs.

The measure of agreement on this matter is, of course, that there has been agreement at national level between the Commission and the trades unions as to what arrangements should be made when closures of this kind occur. That is the measure of the discussion which has taken place. I listened, of course, to what my hon. Friend had to say about the reaction of the local trade unions, and, of course, I have heard such comments before. Naturally, the local railwaymen are entitled to their opinion, and I do not doubt, if it has gone as far as the Commission, that it will pay attention to it.

With regard to my hon. Friend's question about which transport users' consultative committee will consider the case, in this instance the proposals cover the area of two transport users' consultative committees, the East Midland and the East Anglian. In such cases both consultative committees are notified of the proposal, and they decide between themselves how they will deal with it. They may decide that one should deal with the whole of it, or that the other should deal with the whole of it, or they may decide that each of them should deal with part. They will decide that themselves on the basis of what seems to them most likely to be satisfactory to all concerned.

When they have reached their conclusions, after hearing the Commission's proposals, objections, and so on, they then make their recommendations to the Central Committee. The Central Transport Users' Consultative Committee considers each recommendation from the area committees and then, having considered it, they may confirm, vary or reject it, or send it back again for further consideration before finally making a recommendation to the Minister as to what should be done in each case. At the same time the Commission is notified.

My hon. Friend also asked about the arrangements which were made to supply the objectors with financial details of the proposals and financial details of losses on the services as at present. The answer is that, following the famous Bluebell line case in Sussex, an agreed form was drawn up as to how the Commission should present its financial case, showing what the savings would be and so on in regard to the proposal it was making. This form will be followed in this case, as indeed it is in all other cases, and that is made available to the objectors and to the public generally.

The consultative committee itself, if it so wishes, can go further than this. It can, in private session, question the Transport Commission further about the possibilities of reducing the loss, or indeed of turning the loss into a profit if it thinks such a thing is possible by alternative development. That is the form in which the financial picture is shown to the objectors and the general public.

My hon. Friend also asked whether there were any members of the consultative committees who were resident in this area. The answer is that one of the East Midland Committee is resident in the area and one of the East Anglian Committee. There is no significance in this. The membership is drawn broadly from the whole of the area which the consultative committees cover, and it is not intended necessarily to be geographically representative of every area where closures arise.

The very important point which my hon. Friend made was about the independence of the consultative committees. The answer is that they really are independent. They are appointed by my right hon. Friend, according to Section 6 of the Transport Act, 1947, to represent agriculture, industry, commerce, shipping, labour, and the local authorities. My hon. Friend mentioned the number of local authorities which were objecting. There are, incidentally, no fewer than five members representative of local authorities on each consultative committee. The Transport Commission is also represented by two members.

All these various interests are represented by members who are suggested in consultation between my right hon. Friend and their representative bodies, such as the local authority organisations like the County Councils' Association, the National Farmers' Union, the Trades Union Congress, and so on, in order to ensure a body that is fully representative. In addition, two independent members are appointed by my right hon. Friend, making a total of 20 on each committee. Therefore, by both their composition and constitution they really are independent. The members are just public-spirited citizens who are prepared to give their time and trouble to serve the public in an honorary capacity.

They are completely the reverse of being stooges. They can reach any conclusion they like and, from time to time, they turn down or modify the proposals that are put before them. Their procedures are informal, it is true, but that is the nature of the bodies. They are not judicial bodies. They admit the Press to some parts of their work and not to others. They have various considerations for which they are responsible and they must exercise judgment. As far as it is possible to appoint bodies of this kind which carry public confidence I think that Parliament has done it.

My hon. Friend said that when services were well patronised they should be retained. I am sure that there is a great deal of weight in what he has to say to us, but I cannot comment on the merits of these cases. Parliament, in its wisdom, has laid down machinery under the 1947 Act by which these proposals for closures are considered, and if I were to comment on the merits of the case as my hon. Friend has so cogently laid it before me, I should be not only prejudicing the work of the consultative committees in considering the proposals when they come before them but I should be undoubtedly frustrating Parliament's intention that this arrangement should work in this way.

May I add this comment on the Government's general policy towards the Commission, for which my right hon. Friend and I are responsible. We want the country to have a modernised, fully efficient railway service. We believe that this continues to be an essential service for the life of the country. We, as the Government, have given substance to that decision by providing the greater part of the £1,500 million needed for modernising the services plus the extra £400 million for financing the deficits in the meantime in order to bring about this huge, complex operation which my hon. and gallant Friend well understands.

At the present time the Commission is running heavily in deficit. The reports for last year, just published, show a deficit of about £90 million. We as the Government are, therefore, naturally and properly urging the Commission to bring its financial affairs into solvency as soon as it can. We, and indeed the whole House, recognise that if it failed to do so, the deficits would become a direct burden on the taxpayer.

This inevitably means cutting out uneconomic services that are making a loss, uneconomic lines that cannot be brought into profitable running. There is no getting away from it that this is bound to be in some cases a painful affair. Yet all over the country now we can see evidence of modernisation. Diesel engines, diesel sets and so on are now quite commonplace, electrification is going on in certain areas, and there will be a great deal more to come. The overall picture shows that whilst the Government are substantially providing the means by which this can be done, the Commission undoubtedly has the will to bring about modernisation and to bring into profitable operation all the services it operates which have any prospect of becoming profitable. I hope, therefore, that my hon. and gallant Friend will accept my assurance that this is broadly the picture.

In conclusion, I say to him that much as I sympathise with his anxieties and the anxieties of his constituents, I believe that the transport users' consultative committees, who will be considering this im- portant matter, are independently and adequately constituted; that they will consider these proposals fairly and independently; that they will consider the objections of my hon. and gallant Friend's constituents fairly and sympathetically; and that they will, in the spirit of the Act under which they were set up, reach conclusions and give advice as to what should happen there in a fair and proper fashion. I hope, therefore, that my hon. and gallant Friend and his constituents will have confidence in them doing that in a proper fashion.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock.