HC Deb 25 January 1967 vol 739 cc1465-6
20 and 29. Mr. Gwynfor Evans

asked the Minister of Transport (1) what was the annual loss suffered by railways in Wales, freight and passenger, in each of the years from 1955 to 1965;

(2) what was the annual loss made by British Railways in Wales in the years 1955 to 1965.

Mr. John Morris

As the hon. Member has already been informed, British Railways do not maintain their accounts on a basis enabling the financial results of operations in Wales to be calculated separately.

Mr. Evans

Does the Minister appreciate that the alleged loss on the railways in Wales as a whole is therefore an unproved hypothesis, and that facts have been published which suggest that there may not have been a loss at all, and that if no loss can be shown then the policy of closure and of curtailment of services is totally unjustified? Does the Minister of Transport appreciate that she has left West Wales out on a limb?

Mr. Morris

There are no separate figures for Wales for the simple reasons that, as the hon. Gentleman should know, there are two separate regions operating within Wales. Time after time every effort has been made to clarify the misunderstanding in the hon. Gentleman's mind. He has certain figures regarding the Cardiff district and has tried to show that because the gross revenue is higher than the gross expenditure in that area, that is a reflection of the whole railway system in Wales. That is not so because Cardiff is an originating area for traffic, and it is not possible to draw any conclusion about the economics of railway operation in Wales from those figures. I hope that the hon. Gentleman now understands the situation.

Mr. Elystan Morgan

Does the Minister's White Paper, amounting to an abandonment of the Beeching Plan, which would have confined the British Railways network to 8,000 miles of track, mean that certain lines in Wales which would otherwise have been closed will now be retained?

Mr. Morris

My right hon. Friend hopes to stabilise at an early date a considerably larger railway network than that which would inevitably have resulted from the continuation of former policies, and of course that applies to Wales.