§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Fitch.]
§ 1.25 a.m.
§ Dr. Hugh Gray (Yarmouth)I am second to none in the House in my admiration, professionally, personally and ideologically, for the Minister of Transport. She stands for an integrated system of transport throughout the country, and by integration I take it that she is to draw together, to knit together, to create a framework of some kind, to get rid of duplication. I take it that she does not mean that she is to destroy, to take away already existing facilities. The Railways Board is pleased to use the word "rationalisation", which I take to mean to order in accordance with the dictates of reason, again not to destroy, not to take away.
I was very pleased to hear my right hon. Friend say that she would consult the East Anglian Regional Planning Council, but in my constituency there is some alarm because we do not have a representative on that council and we are naturally concerned that the integration of transport within the constituency should be considered. The Minister naturally takes the macro-view of the total situation. Representing the territorial area, I necessarily take the micro-view.
I would like first to say something about the town of Yarmouth. Its internal road system is good. It is true that for many years the council has been hoping to build either a tunnel or a bridge across the River Yare and that the need for a second river crossing is desperate, but, unfortunately, there is no trunk road in Yarmouth near the river and so the money for the crossing cannot be obtained from the Government. It is too late to cry for the railway line which used to run from Yarmouth to King's Lynn. The rails have been torn up and the old railway station is now being used as a bus station.
Communications between Yarmouth and Lowestoft are threatened. On Sundays there is to be no service at all. But in my concern for the constituency I think not solely of the town but also of the rural areas outside it. I urge on 236 my hon. Friend that when there are curtailments of services leading to the disposal of railway land, the land should be offered to the Yarmouth county borough council before disposal.
I want to spotlight the small village of Reedham. By rail it is only six miles from Yarmouth, but by road it is 13 miles, half of it narrow roads which are not suitable for bus services. Like so many villages on the railway line in my constituency, Reedham has no bus services and, with the narrowness of the roads, I doubt whether one could be operated. Many people used the railway to go to work in Yarmouth, including a surprisingly large number of children going to school. In a previous speech, I drew attention to the plight of people who wish to attend churches on Sundays, because in the autumn Sunday services are to be withdrawn. This is not only a social deprivation. I suggest that it is typical of the economic shortsightedness of the railways in their costing.
I was recently having a conversation with a lady, who told me that because she could not go to either Norwich or Yarmouth Catholic churches on a Sunday in future, she would be forced to buy a car. She is a regular traveller on the railway during the week. The railways look at the Sunday services, they cost them in narrow terms, they withdraw trains. To many of my constituents, however, it seems that they are indulging in self-fulfilling prophecies. They say that these railways are not paying, and the action which they take ensures that they pay even less. People are driven to get cars.
One sees this kind of thing happening in other ways. For example, a farmer who sends 200 head of cattle a month by rail was able in the past to send them from the village station of Reedham. Now he has to send them into Norwich and despatch them from Norwich. He finds this extremely inconvenient and he is looking round for a cheaper way of sending them by road. But again, looking to the future, these lorries are congesting the centre of the city. As the city grows and overspills, and there is reason to think that thousands of people will be resettled within ten miles of the city, this kind of congestion will grow still further.
My hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will realise that I am 237 trying to make the point of social costs. The railways tell us that they will provide bus trains. From one point of view, it will be a good development if these bus trains are run more regularly and more frequently than trains at present.
At the same time, the sacrifice of stations will be made. Stationless halts are talked of. I suggest to my hon. friend that stations, like public houses and churches, have latent as well as overt functions. They provide centres of contact. People come together on them. They share certain services in common. One is breaking the texture of rural life if one closes public houses, churches or stations.
This is a sparsely inhabited countryside. As I have said, it is without bus services. I was extremely hopeful when I heard that my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General was thinking of using postal buses for the purpose of transporting people. There are few footpaths. Children have dangerous walks to school. We have an authority which in many cases refuses to provide transport for children when they have less than three miles to travel to rural schools.
I suggest that in a constituency like Yarmouth, in a zone like East Anglia, which should have received special consideration long ago as an underdeveloped area, very careful attention and scrutiny should be given before curtailments of services are allowed.
If these services are cut down, villages will become still more isolated. Services between Lowestoft and Yarmouth are threatened. These two towns have many common interests in terms of light industry and the occupations they pursue. They are both towns with holiday seasons. They should be linked together. One sees that probably the objective of the railways in cutting out freight from the small village stations, apart from being preparatory to shutting them down, is to increase the amount of traffic that goes into Norwich. It is well known that the line from London to Ipswich has always been profitable. Not so the line from Ipswich to Norwich. The policy of the railways seems to be to ignore the convenience of people who live in rural areas and force them to go into Yarmouth or Norwich.
238 Quite recently the railways withdrew cheap day facilities from rural stations to London. Following a vigorous campaign by a militant consumer in Brundall, the authorities agreed that cheap day tickets, in a different form, should be restored to the stations for Brundall and Lingwood. A double ticket could be written out, one to Norwich and one from Norwich to London. That facility has not been extended to other stations, including Reedham. This was one of the pointers which led to suspicions among the inhabitants of this village, and among railwaymen, that the Railways Board was thinking of closing the station down. Fortunately, I put down a Question to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and I was assured that at the moment no such proposal has been received. One hopes that it never will be.
When one sits in London, or even Norwich, it may seem extravagant that there are two small branch lines running from Norwich to Yarmouth. One goes from Norwich via Acle and the other via Reedham. They are supplying essential services to the countryside. I appreciate that the Railways are trying to cut administrative costs and reduce the scale of administrative services, hence the new scheme for cheap tickets. This is extremely good, particularly if, as we hear, two single tickets are going to be equivalent to one cheap day return.
If this kind of policy is adopted people will start to use the railway. Indeed they have no alternative. They must use them or buy a motor car, unless buses and postal vans are provided for carrying passengers. My plea to my hon. Friend is that in thinking about an integrated transport policy, in an overall way, for the country, at regional and local level, he will look at the facilities already existing. One cannot integrate what is not there. I hope that he will not only consider, if he takes something away, putting something in its place, but that he will look at what is not already there and then decide if the services have to be reduced, if these stations have to be closed, and if bus trains are to be substituted for the trains running between Norwich and Yarmouth, that these services are operated frequently.
I hope that he will also do something to dispel the suspicions of railwaymen that no savings are being made. Many 239 railwaymen seem to think that offices in Norwich are growing and becoming stuffed with people who are being transferred from other railway stations. I trust that this is false. There must be real savings made in the economies if they are to be justified, although in my view economies cannot be justified unless social costs are costed in. I cannot believe that a Socialist Government will look only at the pecuniary calculus. They must cost in all these other considerations.
In the brief time that I have had I I have only mentioned a few points but I know that my hon. Friend is already conversant with the same kind of situation in many parts of the country. If he can do something to allay the apprehensions of my constituents he will be performing a service to them and many other people elsewhere.
§ 1.40 a.m.
§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Morris)We have listened with great interest to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Dr. Gray). May I congratulate him for being able to make a speech without the aid of notes? It is something which I have not been able to do, and I am sure that his constituents will be proud of the very cogent way in which he has advanced his case for an integrated and efficient transport system in his constituency.
I have a great deal of sympathy with him. I come from one of the most rural areas in Wales, and I know some of the problems that are involved. Only a fortnight ago, I went to a sort of teach-in, at which representatives of two county councils and four or five local authorities in the area were present, to discuss some of the problems that had arisen in the post-closure period. Coming as I do from the same area, I know the great problems that exist in taking off a rail service and the financial problems of rural bus undertakings in being able to provide a decent alternative service.
On the first issue of integration, perhaps I might make it clear where we stand. As I said a fortnight ago when answering the hon. Member for Horn-castle (Mr. Tapsell), the Minister is deter- 240 mined to stabilise our railway system at the earliest possible moment.
Everyone now accepts that the Transport Act, 1962, gave to the Railways Board an impossible and unrealistic task. The task that it had was of paying its way within the present financial structure. As the figures have come out year by year, they have shown how impossible that has been.
The programme for passenger closures proposed by Dr. Beeching in his Report on the Reshaping of British Railways was based on that commercial objective. One thing which has become clear is that the country will not stand for the butchering of the railway system, and there must be wider considerations than £ s. d. Those are important in themselves, and obviously some pruning must go on. But that is a very different picture from the ruthless doing away with services, merely looking at £ s. d. without taking into account the very important social considerations to which my hon. Friend referred.
When considering a particular closure, the Minister now has the advice of the economic planning council concerned. Those councils were not in existence before the Labour Government came into office—certainly not when the 1962 Act came into operation. Their advice ensures that a particular line is not considered in isolation.
My hon. Friend indicated that there was not a member of the economic planning council from his own constituency. It is a problem to ensure that all interests, industries and people involved in an area are represented, and obviously a fine geographical distribution without overburdening a planning council with a very large number of people is one of the problems which beset those appointing such a body.
The present planning council is able to look at the whole area in general and any part of that area in particular. It is able to give the right kind of advice about the future needs of the area on planning grounds when my Minister has to decide whether a particular rail closure should go through. We regard that as a very important step. As my hon. Friend knows, in addition we have the reports of the T.U.C.C.s on hardship, as laid down in the Act.
241 Since I have been in this office I have seen a large number of hon. Members from both sides of the House—as my predecessor did—who have told me of their concern about railway lines in their constituencies. This shows that there is strong body of opinion which would welcome a change in the framework in which the railways operate, to give more attention to social as distinct from commercial considerations. As the House knows, my right hon. Friend hopes to publish her White Paper on transport this summer, setting out the ideas on which she is now working. It would be wrong for me to anticipate the contents of the White Paper, but I can say that this is certainly among the matters which the is considering.
I think that the specific questions raised by my hon. Friend fall into two groups. The first concerns railway passenger closures. The Railways Board has to give advance notice of its intention with regard to any line, and when it is ready to go ahead with a closure proposal it makes an announcement locally so that the people most concerned are properly informed. But in future the Board will be able to carry out the closure procedure only after obtaining he Minister's permission at this stage. The whole point of this arrangement is that no proposal is allowed to go forward if it is obviously unacceptable from the start as being in conflict with broad planning considerations.
Users of the services can make representations to the T.U.C.C., and are usually able to expand their problems later at a public hearing. A report is then made to the Minister, and where the T.U.C.C. thinks it appropriate, it makes recommendations for additional bus services. Thus, together with the advice of the economic planning council, the Minister has a great deal of evidence before coming to a decision. It is my right hon. Friend's policy not to give her consent in any case where unacceptable hardship would arise, or where closure would conflict with the economic future of the area.
But even where my right hon. Friend allows a closure, there is another safeguard. If there is any chance that a need for services might arise as the result of a long-term planning decision, she will 242 not allow the Railways Board to dispose of the route of the line. Then, if such development takes place there is no physical barrier to restoring the services in the future. This is an important and valuable arrangement. As regards bus services provided as an alternative, my right hon. Friend can vary the conditions to secure improvements if they become necessary in the course of time.
The second group concerns day-to-day management matters. These are the responsibility of the Railways Board which has a large measure of commercial freedom to settle its policy on passenger services, freight services, and fares.
On the questions raised by my hon. Friend about the transport needs of the area, perhaps I might refer first to the Yarmouth Vauxhall to Norwich line. I am able to say that neither of the lines from Yarmouth to Norwich were included in the Reshaping Report, nor in any subsequent announcement, and the Board has said that it has no closure proposals at present for either line. In saying this, the Board points out that it maintains a continuous review of the services in every area. For reasons of economy, the regional management is proposing to reduce Sunday train services on this line. These proposals do not require the Minister's sanction. The right course for anyone aggrieved is to make an approach to the management direct. If the cuts still take place, representations can be made to the T.U.C.C. for East Anglia, which can, if it feels the complaints are justified, make representations accordingly.
Another issue is the need for more buses for villages affected by cuts in rail services. This can be taken up direct with the bus operators who will, I am sure, carefully examine any concrete and well-supported ideas.
My hon. Friend raised the issue of cheap day tickets. As he said, these are available from Reedham to Brundall. Similar tickets in the reverse direction were withdrawn last January because of the small demand. Cheap day tickets are available from Brundall, Lingwood and Reedham to Norwich. The Board has also arranged for cheap day tickets from Norwich to London to be issued at Brundall and Lingwood to avoid re-booking at Norwich. I am given to understand 243 that representations by my hon. Friend were instrumental in getting these arrangements affected.
The other line to Yarmouth, about which my hon. Friend has also asked some questions, runs between Yarmouth South Town station and Lowestoft Central. The line was listed for closure in the Beeching Report, but the Railways Board has taken no further action to carry out these proposals. It is investigating the possibility of reducing the operating costs sufficiently to justify retaining a modified service on the line. This would include reducing the line to a single track with the minimum signalling consistent with safety. The stations would be reduced to unstaffed halts and tickets would be issued on the trains.
My hon. Friend asked some specific questions about freight services in his constituency. As I have explained, this is a matter for the Board, but it has outlined the position for me. Its policy is to concentrate freight facilities on fewer and larger depots. Following up this policy it closed the depot at Haddiscoe last month. The depots at Acle, Ling-wood, Gorleston, Yarmouth South Town and Lowestoft North will be closed later this year. Freight traffic will then be concentrated on the depots at Yarmouth Vauxhall and Lowestoft Central. As for the point made about cattle offered for rail transit to Norwich at Reedham, the position is that Reedham station was closed to freight traffic in July, 1964. For 244 such a short journey as this it would not be worth sending the cattle by road to an alternative rail depot.
I am happy to have been able to reply to my hon. Friend in positive terms. What I have been able to say in reply shows that the Railways Board is keenly interested in making the best possible use of the system in the Yarmouth area by methods of improved operation and management. In this area, as in other parts of the country, the Minister will ensure that the place of the railways in its economy and development will be carefully examined in any proposal that comes before her. This is the most important part of all.
In the course of the debate on the Bill which we have just discussed I was asked some pertinent questions about the cost of the extra scrutiny we take whenever there is a proposal for closure. I was able to indicate to the House on a number of occasions how much this would be. I am very proud of the machinery set up by my right hon. Friend's predecessor—my right hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Tom Fraser)—for looking very carefully into all these applications to ensure that the right decision is taken, and that the travelling public in any area has a proper and adequate transport system.
§ Question put and agreed.
§ Adjourned accordingly at seven minutes to Two o'clock.