HC Deb 11 June 1964 vol 696 cc779-92

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

10.21 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Crosland (Grimsby)

After that long essay in detail with which we have been favoured, I wish to bring the House to the matter of train services in and out of Grimsby. I wish to raise a number of points with the Parliamentary Secretary on all of which I have given him notice. They all seem to demonstrate the fact that Grimsby's future under the rule of Dr. Beeching appears to be extremely bleak. Grimsby apparently plays only a minimal rôle in his view of affairs. And they all seem to indicate an important point in the present set-up, that it is nobody's business to consider the effect of the railway decisions on the road transport problems in the areas affected.

The first matter I wish to raise is the proposal of the Railways Board to withdraw the passenger train services on the Cleethorpes, Grimsby and New Holland line. Many objections were raised to this. The Transport Users Consultative Committee held a public inquiry on 12th November of last year and on 24th January of this year it was announced that In their report to the Minister of Transport, the Committee expressed the view that the withdrawal of the services would inflict hardship upon large numbers of people. They were unable to suggest any adequate means of alleviating this hardship. I think that this was an unusually strong report to go to the Minister from any T.U.C.C. It is one of the most definite statements that I have read. I will not go through the arguments in detail. The grounds of the hardship are well enough known to anybody who lives in the area. There is no adequate alternative bus service, and the present bus service compared with the rail service would take a great deal longer, cost a great deal more and would obviously be less convenient for very many people—those with perambulators and luggage and so on. All these points have been made before. The particular point in this case is that we have a long pier at New Holland and the train draws up to the end of the pier. The bus would have to stop at the beginning of the pier which is a quarter of a mile long. Anyone who is aware of what the weather can be like in north Lincolnshire in winter will spare some thought for people—especially the old and the lame—who find themselves stranded with a quarter of a mile to walk.

Those are the main reasons why many of us and the T.U.C.C. think that great hardship will result from the closure of this line and the withdrawal of the passenger service. My first question to the Parliamentary Secretary is, what is happening? After all, 24th January, when the T.U.C.C. reported to the Minister, is nearly five months ago, and I wish to know whether any decision has been taken. If the reason is that the Minister is delaying because he is taking a total view of the whole picture in north Lincolnshire, obviously that would be an adequate reason and I should have less complaint to make. But after a delay of five months, we should have some explanation of when the decision is likely to be given and what is the reason for it having been postponed for so long.

The second point I wish to raise with the Parliamentary Secretary concerns the proposal of British Railways to withdraw passenger services on the Peter-borough-Grimsby-Cleethorpes line, a line which I know well, as does the hon. Member for Horncastle (Sir J. Maitland) as one who travels on it many times a year. Although Grimsby would be extremely bady affected if passenger services were withdrawn on this line, in some towns in his constituency the position would be even worse than in Grimsby. The basic arguments against the closure are very much the same as those against the closure of the New Holland line, but there are two additional problems.

In this case the redundancy of railway workers would be much more severe. The trade unions concerned reckon that well over 400 people might be made redundant by this closure. The second problem which arises on this line, but not to the same extent on the New Holland line, is that of peak holiday traffic which is acute. One is horrified at the prospect of thrusting on to the winding, tortuous Lincolnshire roads the enormous volume of peak holiday traffic which now goes by rail.

It is strongly rumoured that so many objections have been lodged with the Transport Users Consultative Committee about the proposal relating to this line that the Committee may not be able to meet until the end of September. Then the whole thing may be solved by the General Election. I should like an assurance from the Parliamentary Secretary, however, about the future of this extremely important line.

Sir Harmar Nicholls (Peterborough)

I wonder if the hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) is aware that the concern he is expressing is felt as far away as Peterborough and that some assurance will be appreciated in Peterborough.

Mr. Crosland

I am very much obliged to the hon. Member. I think that the concern is widespread not only in towns on the line but also in places served by branch lines such as Skegness and other places.

I turn to the question of freight services. I completely recognise that the Minister's responsibilities in connection with freight services are not the same as those affecting passenger services. In the 1962 Transport Act British Railways were given complete power over freight services and the only power of the Minister there is one of general direction. Knowing that, I speak in this connection on general policy because it would be unfair to put to the Parliamentary Secretary a particular decision about freight traffic. I wish to ask him if he considers that there is a case for a general direction on the amount of notice which British Railways should give when announcing the withdrawal of a freight service, or a very large increase in freight charges.

At the moment they do not always seem to give sufficient notice. If this is so, the matter seems to be one of Ministerial responsibility. I illustrate that point by two examples both concerning Grimbsy. The first relates to dock haulage charges for timber. Grimsby timber merchants received a letter on 7th November last year telling them that a nearly three-fold increase in charges would take effect on 18th November, less than a fortnight later.

It seems quite wrong that an important trade should be given less than two weeks' notice of an increase in charges amounting to very nearly threefold. The announcement was made without any prior consultation. As a consequence, a great deal of reorganisation will be necessary. What is also important in the long run is that the rather autocratic way in which this was done has somewhat poisoned the relations between the timber trade and the railways which historically have been very good in this part of the world. I want to know whether this might justify the Minister making a general direction about the period of notice which should be given.

The last question I ask refers to fish trains and an even more alarming situation. It is proposed to cut down the number of fish trains out of Grimsby from eight to effectively two. I want to be fair to British Railways. There may have been a genuine misunderstanding here and a genuine failure of communications, but Grimsby fish merchants are convinced that they were informed only in mid-April—15th April, in fact—that this very drastic cut in the number of fish trains would take place in July. I could quote evidence of the fact that they were all convinced that this was true. But there may have been a real misunderstanding over this, and I do not want to be unfair to British Railways, because the railways say that they never had any intention of taking these trains off until October. But the fact is that the merchants in Grimsby thought that this was the intention and that they had been given three months' notice.

This announcement of the withdrawal of the fish trains in Grimsby, more than in any other fishing port, will lead to the most enormous upheavel. The fish merchants will have to prepare a very elaborate alternative system of road transport. They quite recognise that they may have to do this, but they say that three months would have been an impossibly short time in which to do it and that even notice as short as six months will make it difficult for them. If they have not been able to do this by October it is probable that the whole matter will have to be raised again.

Whether there was a misunderstanding or not, the essential point is this: I personally, and, I think, the timber merchants and fish merchants in Grimsby, too, do not think that it is any part of the job of British Railways to continue to run uneconomic services. Of course it is not. To suggest that it is part of their business is to adopt a ridiculous attitude. All we say is that if British Railways decide that services are uneconomic and wish either to put up the charges drastically or to withdraw the services, it is essential that they should consult the trade concerned and should give the trade concerned proper notice, prior warning, months and even possibly a year or more ahead so that the trade can make its own alternative transport arrangements.

This raises the question whether some general direction ought to be given by the Minister to British Railways on those lines. This is not an attack on British Railways. I suggest that such an approach would be in the interests of the railways because the question of public relations is very important to them, and any suggestion of autocratic behaviour obviously does their public relations no good.

Another issue which arises from all these four matters which I have raised is whether the Minister should not make himself more directly responsible for the consequences on the road transport system of the withdrawal of rail services. As many hon. Members know, in north and east Lincolnshire the roads are narrow. Certainly we do not have marvellous highways running from Peterborough to Grimsby or from Grimsby to Skegness. We have narrow, winding, tortuous roads. Every one of these decisions will put on the roads much additional and usually very heavy freight traffic. The fact is that at the moment British Railways can take this kind of decision about rail services without having to take any responsibility for the effect which the decision will have on the roads.

10.33 p.m.

Sir John Maitland (Horncastle)

The whole House is grateful to the hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) for raising this matter, and certainly those of us who live in Lincolnshire are grateful. Lincolnshire is the second largest county in England. This system of closures which is proposed will cut literally half the county off from the rest of England, and we shall have no railway transport whatever if these closures take place. As the hon. Member said, because we are sparsely populated in Lincolnshire, the roads are naturally long and narrow, and replacing rail transport by road transport would be enormously expensive.

There is one point only which I want to make in the few minutes for which I shall speak. The Government have said that they are carrying out surveys of all the various parts of England They have already carried out a survey in Scotland and in the North-East, and at the moment they are surveying the West Midlands and other parts of England. They propose to do the entire country. It seems to me quite ridiculous that this great system of railways should be closed—quite apart from the effect on the holiday traffic and other troubles involved—before such a survey is made. We hear of tremendous congestion in the south-east of England. Almost the last place to which industry can move is the very large area in east Lincolnshire, and I cannot understand how it can be contemplated that we should close the railway lines feeding this area before such a survey has been made.

I regard the future with considerable optimism because during the 19 years I have been in Parliament on no occasion have I failed to have put right a situation which was shown to be unjust. It is always possible, if there is a real injustice, to put it right. That is, perhaps, the finest thing about British Parliamentary procedure. It is obviously so right that we should maintain this service that I have great faith that when the Government have completed their consideration of the matter they will inevitably maintain this line, not only in the interests of Lincolnshire but for the future economic development of this country.

10.36 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. T. G. D, Galbraith)

Before Whitsun, the hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) secured an Adjournment debate when he decided to discuss the freight services out of Grimsby. He then unfortunately caught chicken pox, but I am glad to see that he is now fully recovered. During his convalescence he must have thought that freight was too limited a subject, for tonight he has expanded the title of the debate and we are now landed with passenger services as well as with freight.

I do not know that I can reply adequately to either leg of his argument, because freight is essentially a matter of management for which my right hon. Friend has no responsibility, and the future of the passenger services to which he referred is, as it were, sub judice. However, I will do my best to reply, though strictly there really is nothing to answer for, which is always the difficulty we come up against when we debate these detailed matters of nationalised industries.

I think the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friends the Members for Horn-castle (Sir J. Maitland) and for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) know what the procedure is with regard to railway closures. First of all, the railways on their own initiative—I stress that; it has nothing to do with the Minister or with the Government—decide in the light of their commercial judgment which lines they want to close. This is what they have done here. Their proposals, so far as they affect Grimsby, as the hon. Gentleman told us, involve the closure to the north of the lines linking Grimsby and Cleethorpes with New Holland, Barton-on-Humber and Immingham, and to the south the closure of the Grimsby to Peterborough line with branches to Mablethorpe and Skegness, which concern my two hon. Friends the Members for Horncastle and Peterborough.

The railways having made a proposal to close these lines, what happened next was that an objection was lodged; in fact, several objections were lodged. Because objections were lodged, this set in motion the special machinery devised in the 1962 Act for the protection of the interests of passengers. This brings in both the Transport Users Consultative Committee and the Minister. I do not think I need remind the hon. Gentleman or my hon. Friends that the purpose of the T.U.C.C. is to consider whether or not a closure would cause hardship and whether or not the alternatives suggested are satisfactory.

With regard to the northern group, as the hon. Gentleman said, the T.U.C.C. has already reported. It was, however, as the hon. Gentleman also told us, unable to suggest any means of alleviating the hardship which closure would cause, either through the use of existing bus services or the additional bus services which had been proposed at the T.U.C.C. hearing. Because of this failure to find any way of dealing with the hardship, we tried to see whether other alternatives exist, and we have asked the Railways Board to look at the problem again, especially—and this meets the point made by the hon. Gentleman—on how to enable passengers to make a connection with the ferry at New Holland pier without having to suffer delays or the rigours of the weather to which the hon. Gentleman referred. This is particularly important in a group of services which cater not only for commuters at peak periods but also, I understand, during the day for many kinds of work. The hon. Gentleman asked the reason for the delay. This is the reason for the delay—looking into the matter to see whether there are other methods of dealing with this hardship.

To turn to the southern group, the T.U.C.C. has not yet reported, as the hon. Gentleman said. Indeed, it may well be some time before it considers this case. Here the problem is of a different kind. A major question will be the effect on holidaymakers wishing to go to the two well-known resorts of Skegness and Mablethorpe from the south and the Midlands. Again, as in the case of the northern lines, I should emphasise that the Minister will be looking at these proposals as a group and not in isolation. He has publicly recognised this already by deciding not to take a decision on the Lincoln—Firsby line until he has the report from the T.U.C.C. on the other related services.

The House will see that, contrary to what is sometimes said, the Government do not pick off closure proposals one by one like the ten little nigger boys until the services in an area gradually disappear altogether. We proceed in exactly the opposite way, by looking at proposals which are plainly linked together as a group and in relation to the area and the services they provide as a whole.

This process of weighing up the pros and cons is not done haphazardly or as a mere impersonal financial exercise. It is carried out with great care and with a deep sense of responsibility of all the issues involved; social, economic and welfare. However, as I explained earlier, as the future of these lines is, as it were, sub judice, I regret that I cannot comment on many of the points raised or discuss their merits, but I can assure hon. Members that they will be considered very carefully before my right hon. Friend reaches a decision. I can assure the hon. Member for Grimsby on one point I was surprised he did not know; that road transport is a matter to which my right hon. Friend pays very great attention, not only in relation to roads but the traffic on them. The hon. Member can set his mind at rest on that score. I have given this assurance often before when answering similar debates.

I turn to the problem of freight, which affects the fish and timber trade. I am, on this issue, also in a difficulty since the extent of the service and the charges for it are plainly management matters. The Transport Act, 1962, specifically gave the railways the same commercial freedom to charge what they considered the right price as other transport operators have always possessed. However, within the limits open to me, I will make some comments which I hope will be useful.

The Board tells me that last year it undertook an investigation into the economics of carrying fish. That showed that the traffic was highly unremunerative. In many cases the receipts were not even covering direct costs, still less contributing, as all traffic must, to overheads. The trouble is that present loadings are ridiculously small, averaging 35 tons per train and two tons per van, as, against a reasonable loading of at least 100 tons per train and four tons per van. Further, the present movement of small consignments to about 3,000 distribution points is completely uneconomic.

The Board decided to rationalise the system and provide fast services to a restricted number of railheads, about 25 to 30, with onward distribution by road of the much smaller loads dropped off at the railheads. For Grimsby, this would mean a reduction from eight to three trains per day. The hon. Member for Grimsby said that this would mean two effectively. I am told that it would be three, but we will not argue about that.

This was the Board's outline plan, but I must emphasise that there is no truth in the suggestion that the Board presented the fish trade with a fait accompli involving the cutting of fish services from 1st July. At this meeting the Board explained its difficulties and why it could not continue to handle fish traffic in the same way as in the past. The Board put forward tentative proposals, in confidence, and sought the industry's co-operation in agreeing a scheme by 1st July, 1964, so that new arrangements could be introduced three months later.

Unfortunately, incorrect information about these proposals seems to have leaked out and led to the assumption that the services were to end on 1st July, whereas this was only the date by which the railways hoped to get an agreed scheme which could be implemented later in the autumn.

All this was explained by the Board at the annual conference of the National Federation of Fishmongers on 4th May and, in the light of this explanation, I do not think that anybody can accuse the railways of treating their fish trade customers in a cavalier fashion. There has been good notice and plenty of discussion about the new services which the Board proposes to introduce. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that the Board will read with interest what the hon. Member has said about giving adequate notice.

As for the freight point concerning timber, which the hon. Member also raised, here three parties are involved—the Railways Board, the Docks Board and, of course, the timber importers. Whenever this sort of situation arises there is a tendency to expect my right hon. Friend to intervene and direct the Boards about how they should solve the problem—in this case the question of handling timber in the docks. But cooperation on matters of management is something on which the Boards get together themselves, like other commercial enterprises with mutual interests, and develop appropriate arrangements at working and management levels. This is exactly what has happened in the case of the timber trade.

The Timber Trade Federation raised the question of charges with my right hon. Friend and he explained, as I have done tonight, that this was a matter for the industries. He did however bring the Federation's representations to the notice of the two Boards and suggested that they might go on with the sort of discussions with the Federation which they had been having already. As a result of these discussions, agreement has been reached on the appointment of outside consultants at certain ports, of which Grimsby is one. It was also agreed to set up liaison committees at all the main timber ports. These developments, part of the normal working of any industry, were commented upon favourably by Mr. Kennedy, president of the Timber Trades Federation, at the annual dinner of the Humber District Timber Trade Association, and that is something which we should record. In the light of that we should wait and see what comes out of it.

As for timber rates, the charges, both for dock handling and inland carriage, have gone up and the Board agrees that this was done at Grimsby with very little formal notice. But the Board tells me that the position at Grimsby was so bad that in order to achieve a phased programme of charges the Board found it necessary to propose increases at shorter notice than it would have liked. But although there was not much notice in the case of Grimsby—and this is not necessarily an excuse—the increases can hardly have come as a surprise since increased charges had been imposed in various other places for some considerable time. Compared with previous practice some of the increases are of course very large indeed, but this is just a measure of how unrealistic the old charges were and is part of the explanation why the annual deficit of the railways has been so large—£150 million, or approximately 6d. on the Income Tax.

This is what people always forget when they complain about increases or closures. They forget the cost, and while one can be sympathetic with those who come face to face with the harsh realities of economic fact for the first time, I do not think that the railways would be justified in carrying traffic at such highly unremunerative rates and in fact subsidising at their own expense the trade of one of their customers. However, the Railways Board, I understand, has tried to soften the blow and has agreed to a moratorium on further increases for dock-loaded timber from 22nd April until the end of the year. To this extent it has shown its understanding. As for the future, the Board tells me that further increases cannot be ruled out unless improvements both in methods of working and in traders' requirements are found as a result of the consultants' investigations, to which I have referred, and are also applied in practice.

The proposed changes which we have been talking about tonight, involving passenger services, freight services and charges, are all part of the plan for bringing the railways into line with modern conditions. Where passengers are involved, with the possibility of personal hardship, the Minister has a part to play, and he will play that part with a great sense of responsibility; but where commercial negotiations are involved, as in any other industry, the various interests are best left to work out a solution for themselves. This is normal business practice. If the railways are not to become an unnecessary burden—perhaps I should use the expression which is fashionable on the other side of the House and say, if they are not to become an unnecessary drain on the country's finances, this practice must apply to them as it does to anybody else.

In conclusion, a word of encouragement. Dr. Beeching made clear in his Report, The Reshaping of British Railways, that his proposals were not directed towards achieving viability by what he described as the simple and unsatisfactory method of rejecting all those parts of the system which do not pay already and cannot be made to pay easily". That is not the way he goes about it. As regards fish and timber, he has shown already that he is willing to co-operate with industries in finding means of continuing to carry these traffics by rail. I think that this should encourage the hon. Gentleman's constituents.

The Question having been proposed after 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 at nine minutes to Eleven o'clock.