HC Deb 09 April 1962 vol 657 cc1095-106

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

10.0 p.m.

Dame Irene Ward (Tynemouth)

I know that Dr. Beeching, as Chairman of the British Transport Commission, has been given a very difficult job in making the railways pay. I do not think that any of us would want to do other than wish him well in his very unenviable task, but there are certain aspects of this problem to which I wish to direct the attention of the House. Dr. Beeching is obviously a man of great ability, as evidenced by the fact that he attracted a very large salary when he was with I.C.I. and that salary is still payable during his period of office, which is relatively a very short one, as Chairman of the Commission.

I never grudge anyone any amount of money which he is able to earn, but I do mot think that money is everything in life. It is equally important that a man who has a responsible job of great magnitude should understand human relations and be able to carry out the task he has been directed to perform having regard to the needs of the people over whom he exercises a great deal of influence. He is responsible for their happiness and employment. It is very important to bear this in mind.

Dr. Beeching came to Newcastle-upon-Tyne and made a speech on a non-railway occasion at a luncheon of the National Union of Manufacturers. He then said that, as the electric railways on the north and the south of the Tyne were not paying—we were not given any details—they might well have to be closed. Subsequently, apparently, when he was leaving the luncheon, he said that there was no immediate threat to their survival.

I went to the headquarters of the railways and asked for a text of the speech. I was told that it was not a railway occasion and that, therefore, no text was available. I sent a telegram to Dr. Beeching, asking whether he would be kind enough to send me a copy of the speech to reach me at the House of Commons today, Monday. I did that, not only in the interests of and for the protection of Tyneside, and to ensure that I did not misquote Dr. Beeching, but also in his own interests, because in the small field in which I have operated in industry I have always been under the impression that, if a man makes a very important speech, which has very wide repercussions, there should be a text of his speech. I should have thought that anybody with Dr. Beedhing's experience would know that when a speech goes to the Press there is such a thing as sub-editing.

I now want to read the letter which I received from Dr. Beeching, because I think that it is important that all this should be on the record. The letter says: Dear Dame Irene, I did not use a written text when I spoke at Newcastle and cannot, therefore, send you a copy. You do not indicate any particular reason for your present request… I find that very surprising. As I have said, I should have thought that any responsible man would have had a text of a speech of that nature. It never occurred to me that Dr. Beeching would require me to state why I wanted to see the text.

The letter continues: but since we seem to continue in some danger of misunderstanding one another, in spite of our correspondence to date, would you care to come and see me so that we can exchange ideas about a number of matters? We might then correspond more comfortably. I have written to Dr. Beeching and told him that I shall be delighted to invite him to lunch with me at the House of Commons.

I wrote to the Chairman of the North Eastern Area Board, Mr. Summerson, and explained to him how worried I was that there was no text of the speech, and that this unexpected announcement by Dr. Beeching had caused great anxiety on Tyneside. I pointed out that it was extremely alarming for all those people on both sides of the Tyne who earn their living in Newcastle, that we were busy building a £12 million tunnel to improve communications, that we were seeking to attact new industries to the Tyneside and that communications had always proved an obstacle. I said that I thought that it was not fair that a statement of that kind should have been made unless the whole of the facts about the protection of the private citizen had been stated quite clearly by Dr. Beeching at the time that he made his announcement. I understood Mr. Summerson to tell me that if there were no proposals before the appropriate committee they would soon be forthcoming.

I am not very keen on Government Departments. I always like going right to the top. As always, I have great faith in the Prime Minister, and also, because he once represented a seat on the North-East Coast. I wrote to him pointing out what a disastrous thing it would be to us if the proposals to close the electric lines were carried out. I will not argue the merits of the case, because I do not think that that would be fair or right. As usual, the Prime Minister sent my letter straight to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, and I will quote the relevant passage from the Minister's letter to me, because I feel that this, too, should be on record. It was longer and more conclusive than we had heard before.

I should like to point out that my complaint against Dr. Beeching is not that he came to announce his proposal, which the Newcastle Journal described as "kite flying." I do not think that any responsible chairman of a nationalised undertaking should "kite fly" with the lives and future of people who live in any part of the country, and I feel particularly strongly when it happens to be in my area. I will not quote the whole letter, because I do not think for one moment that any move will be made in regard to these railway lines until the new Transport Bill reaches the Statute Book. I therefore will quote only the part of the letter which deals with the new Bill.

My right hon. Friend writes: You have referred in your letter to The Times "— I had written a letter to The Times— to the provisions of the Transport Bill now before the House. As you there say, it will, under the procedure proposed, still be for the railways to propose closures. They are required by Clause 57 to give notice of any proposed passenger closure and of particulars of any alternative services which it seems to them will be available and any proposals they have for providing or augmenting such alternative services. The Clause goes on to provide the detailed procedure for the consideration of proposed passenger closures by the Consultative Committees. The Committees are required, where any closure is opposed, to report to me direct on the hardship, if any, which they think will be caused. They may make proposals for alleviating that hardship. No closure can be effected until I have consented to it and I may give my consent subject to conditions and also give such directions to the Board as I think fit. Thus, when the Bill becomes law, every opposed closure will need my consent and I can, if I think there is social need, direct the railways to keep passenger services open even though they are uneconomic. Again, they would in effect constitute a charge upon public funds. In your letter you also say quite correctly that Clause 4 of the Bill empowers the railways themselves to provide road transport services where a railway service has been discontinued. I have written at some length, because I want to confirm your understanding of the position. In short, it is that whilst the railways can propose closure it is for the Committees to examine any hardship involved. From later this year every opposed closure will need my consent and I can direct the railways to provide an alternative service (if they have not arranged to do so as part of the closure proposal), or to keep the railway service going. The interests of users are, therefore, I hope you will agree, very well taken care of. It is very difficult for a politician to stick his or her neck out. I do not think for one moment that closure will follow from what Dr. Beeching said in Newcastle. There are 38,000 daily commuters, and I do not think that in view of today's narrow and congested roads it would be possible to put that number of daily commuters on to the roads. At tile same time, it is very important to make the position perfectly clear, as I see it.

I do not think that Dr. Beeching should have come to Newcastle and made a speech of that kind without including in it a statement of the protection there was for the people of the district. If one is to make an alarming staement, it is important to say what the legal position is—or what it will be when the Bill reaches the Statute Book.

I have had a rough assessment made by the Central Transport Consultative Committee of what alternative bus services would be necessary. The Committee says that the closure would involve putting obout 250 double-decker buses on the roads at peak hours. Anybody who knows our part of the country will realise that that would probably block the whole of the traffic on both sides of the Tyne from the coast to Newcastle.

As I have said, I am not unduly worried about the future of our railways provided that we make our objections at the appropriate time, but I still take great exception to the way in which Dr. Beeching came to Newcastle and caused all this anxiety at a time when my community, and the country as a whole, already faces many anxieties—

Commander J. S. Kerans (The Hartlepools)

I think that the point my hon. Friend is trying to make is that not only is Newcastle affected, but areas beyond. The Hartlepools, which I represent, are affected by the statements that my hon. Friend is making.

Dame Irene Ward

I am grateful for my hon. and gallant Friend's intervention, because I am not speaking only for Tyneside.

I now propose to read a letter from the Central Transport Consultative Committee. The whole matter needs clearing up, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to do so. When I had read the report of Dr. Beeching's speech in the local newspaper I wrote to the Chairman of the Central Transport Consultative Committee, and received a reply on 22nd March from which I want to quote. First, however, I want to say how grateful I am to that Committee for being so helpful and so outspoken to me. I feel a little apprehensive that, under the new Bill, that Committee will lose its power, and that the closure of lines will be dealt with by the area consultative committees.

The letter states: I believe that Dr. Beeching, when he was in Newcastle recently, made a speech at a luncheon given by the Northern Branch of the National Association of British Manufacturers at which he said he was concerned by the fact that the electric services to Whitley Bay and South Shields were losing money, and that consideration would have to be given as to the possibility of their withdrawal. But this is just preliminary kite-flying. Dr. Beeching is doing a good deal of this at the moment all over the place; so are other railway officers. I take great exception to that and I am sure that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans) would do the same.

The letter continues: There is no doubt but that a very big programme of line closures is contemplated, but we do not expect it to be announced until the Transport Bill becomes law next July, when as of course you know, the intention is that area consultative committees (not the Central Committee at all) will only be concerned in making a report to the Minister as to the hardship involved by closures, and the best way of obviating it by providing alternative road transport. They will no longer be concerned as they are at present, in advising the Minister whether they think that the closure is justified or not. As nothing affecting Newcastle is at present before any Committee, and Dr. Beeching has made no firm proposal to close these railways, I do not see what we can do. We cannot prevent Dr. Beeching from making flesh-creeping prophecies! A post-script to the letter adds: Since writing the above, I have read your letter to The Times. While it is, of course, technically true that the Railways Board, under Dr. Beeching, cannot do more than recommend a closure, the closure will take place automatically unless an objection is made within the prescribed period to the area consultative committee, and, as this committee can only report on the hardship involved, the Minister will inevitably give his consent to the closures unless the committee can convince him that the hardship is likely to be so extreme that it cannot be obviated by any less expensive form of transport. Then, and only then, would he withhold his consent. So Dr. Beeching knows he is on a pretty good wicket, and thoughts about any statutory limitations on his own actions, and the safeguarding of passengers, are not likely to be in the forefront of his mind when he speaks at a public luncheon. I have put these facts before the House tonight because I want to know if my hon. Friend can say whether, in fact, it is Dr. Beeching's intention, as soon as the Transport Bill reaches the Statute Book, to recommend all these closures up and down the country.

I have carefully read the debates on the Bill in Standing Committee, particularly on Clause 57, and I cannot find very much satisfaction as to the protection which these area committees will have. There is no indication of what final obligation the Government will undertake when these closures, if any, are effected. I can see the advantage of transferring the money which is being lost on the railways to public account. I can see Dr. Beeching's point on this, but it is tremendously important, in view of the anxiety which Dr. Beeching has caused as a result of his coming to Newcastle, that my hon. Friend should say tonight just how far this matter has got, and whether, in July, we will be faced with closures all over the country without the House having a say in the matter.

After all, hon. Members represent the final protection of the people. Dr. Beeching does not protect them—whether or not he is Chairman of the British Transport Commission. It is up to hon. Members to protect the interests of the public. I just want to know exactly what this "kite-flying" gentleman has in mind.

10.19 p.m.

Mr. William Blyton (Houghton-le-Spring)

I fully support the arguments adduced by the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) on this matter. Dr. Beeching was presented to us as the man who was going to bring our railways back into solvency. One can get a man for much less than £24,000 a year if the only job he is going to do is to closedown branch lines. I thought we were paying £24,000 a year to a man who had sufficient brains to make the railways economic and solvent. To pay a salary of this kind to Dr. Beeching to come to Tyneside and say that he is considering closing the electric lines on both sides of the river is just a bit too bad.

I am a lifelong Tynesider. I live in South Shields, although I represent Houghton-le-Spring. I want to ask the Minister, who represents Dr. Beeching—

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay)

No, I do not

Mr. Blyton

—how is he going to carry on if the branch lines on the South Shields-Newcastle line are closed? How are we going to carry the thousands of people from Newcastle to South Shields? There are not enough buses to take the people there. How are we going to take them from Newcastle to North Shields, to Whitley Bay and to the shipyards at Wallsend?

Commander Kerans

I was there during the war. I should like to know how we are going to get industry into the area if these lines are closed.

Mr. Blyton

I am not arguing about new industries tonight. I am arguing about the present industries. How are we going to get the workmen to work and back again if we close the branch lines on both sides of the Tyne?

My other question is this. Why should this man, who is paid such a fabulous salary of £24,000 a year, come to Tyneside and talk in this fashion. Has he got at the back of his mind the thought that when he gets the necessary powers under the Transport Bill he will close the lines on both sides of the Tyne? We have never had a satisfactory answer to that question.

I say tonight, as a life-long Tynesider, that for Dr. Beeching to come and make a speech of this sort, "off the cuff", as he says, is a bad way for a man of his importance to behave. I hope that the Minister will give us some satisfaction for the £24,000 that we are paying this man, instead of talk about closing branch lines.

10.22 p.m.

Mr. Ernest Popplewell (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West)

Whilst I can appreciate the concern of the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) and my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) at the closing of the Tyneside electric services, I would point out that their attack is directed to the wrong person. Dr. Beeching has been appointed specifically for this purpose. We said that when the appointment was made. The hon. Member for Tynemouth and others should attack the Minister. It is the Ministry, the Government themselves, who by their policy are bringing about this sort of thing.

The final responsibility for closing the line rests not with the Consultative Committee but with the Minister at the moment, and this will be even more so when the Transport Bill becomes law. Up till now the Minister has faithfully accepted every recommendation of the Consultative Committee. The Minister has powers to reject these recommendations.

Mr. Hay indicated dissent.

Mr. Popplewell

It is no use the Parliamentary Secretary shaking his head. There was only one instance in which the Government refused, and ultimately the Minister agreed with the original proposition of the Consultative Committee. The Minister sent me a letter to this effect.

The main attack should be not on Dr. Beeching but on Government policy that is deliberately bringing about this state of affairs and is causing our railway system to require a national subsidy of £850 million, whereas not only was it able to pay all its interest charges but it was able to make a profit before this bungling Government took over and brought about this shocking state of affairs.

10.25 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay)

My hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) began this short debate by saying that she appreciated that Dr. Beeching had a very difficult job to do. I think that after this debate most hon. Members will realise just how difficult that job is.

As I understand it—and I am not responsible for Dr. Beeching, contrary to what the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) thought—

Mr. Blyton

The hon. Gentleman appointed him.

Mr. Hay

No, I did not. Whether my right hon. Friend appointed him or not, he is not responsible for Dr. Beeching in the sense in which the hon. Gentleman used the expression.

In any event, what has happened has been that Dr. Beeching went to the luncheon on Tyneside and made a speech to the members assembled about his job, and he placed what I can only consider as some home truths before his audience. I think that if one reads what Press reports there are of the speech one is bound to conclude that he was talking nothing more nor less than plain common sense.

There is one thing which has not been said tonight, and it is one thing which was certainly mentioned by Dr. Beeching, and that is the astronomical deficit which the British Transport Commission is running at present. It is all very well for hon. Members to talk as they have done tonight, and to point to the difficulties that there will be if various services are withdrawn, but no one has yet said how it is possible to go on running the railways and expecting them to run on a viable basis if they are to go on losing, as they do now, £151 million a year.

This is a very big sum indeed. The job of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was at the Dispatch Box earlier today, would have been much easier for the coming year if he had not been faced with the prospect of a substantial deficit on the part of the Commission, requiring a great deal of money from the taxpayers.

One other thing which Dr. Beeching appears to have said in his speech and which I must repeat is that at present the passenger services of the Commission lose about £40 million a year. If one can quote from what he said as reported in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle on 15th March, the date of the lunch, apparently he said: The population are moving away from the railways to the roads—private transport and bus services. This is a process we cannot reverse any more than we can go back to the stage coach. It is possible that we shall have to close these services. He was referring to the Tyneside services.

But, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth said, before leaving Newcastle Dr. Beeching was reported in the Press as having added: There is no immediate threat to these lines, but their closure at some time in the future must be considered very seriously. If one reads, as I have not time to do tonight, the very full statement that was published in The Times of the following day, 16th March, one gets the matter in a much better perspective, because it is quite apparent from that that Dr. Beeching's speech at Newcastle was directed, as I said just now, to putting before his audience some of the home truths about the railway situation and emphasising the fact that we are living in a situation where people are voluntarily leaving the railways and either transferring their custom to buses on the roads or using their own methods of private transport, thus creating a very acute problem for the railways.

Having said that, Dr. Beeching went on to point out that it is inevitable that the railway services must contract. The Government have often said in this House—I myself have said it at the Dispatch Box in a number of debates—that we just cannot go on maintaining in Britain in the middle of the twentieth century a railway system which was put down a hundred years ago when there were virtually no roads to speak of and there was certainly nothing like the motorised transport that we have today.

This is the plain, simple fact. It is inevitable that there must be restrictions and reductions in services for the plain and simple reason that people have already indicated that they do not want the services by deserting the railways in increasing numbers over the years.

I am not saying that the Tyneside services are going to be cut, because there is no proposal yet to cut them. As and when a proposal is made—if it is made—then it will be put through the consultative machinery in the normal way, as my right hon. Friend said in the letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth which she herself quoted. Unless and until that happens, my right hon. Friend has no responsibility in this matter.

The Question having been proposed at Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.