HC Deb 19 November 1970 vol 806 cc1577-88

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

10.13 p.m.

Mr. Ernest Armstrong, (Durham, North-West)

Mr. Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris)

Order. Will hon. Members please leave as quietly as possible.

Mr. Armstrong

I welcome this opportunity of raising a matter which is of immediate, urgent and serious concern to my constituents in West Durham. Public transport in West Durham, as in many other places, is deteriorating each year. West Durham has no passenger train service and each year bus services become increasingly difficult to maintain.

Now the area faces what amounts to an ultimatum from the near-monopoly bus concern—United Automobile Services—which has indicated to six district councils that, unless a subsidy of £12,125 per annum is agreed upon by 31st December of this year, on 31st January, 1971, certain bus services will be withdrawn.

Certain people in my constituency will then have no access to public transport, because some villages will be isolated. They will not be able to use private transport, as they are in the lower paid category and live on fixed incomes. Therefore, they will be prevented from leading what most people will regard as a normal life.

Because of this ultimatum, Durham County Council has taken the initiative and is calling together the district councils involved in the services that have been identified by the United Automobile Service. In my constituency there are two services. One is the X10, which was brought into being when the railway line from Crook to Bishop Auckland was closed. The X10 runs from Crook to Darlington. It is an express service and calls at the place where there used to be a railway station with passenger train facilities. The other service is the 12.13, which also runs from Crook to Darlington but which provides a necessary and valuable contact between the various villages on the way.

I am well aware of the practical difficulties that face any bus operator. Passenger traffic is declining for a number of reasons, not least because overhead costs are continually rising. Nevertheless, a reasonable and sensible solution must be found if my constituents are to continue to enjoy the normal facilities of life that most of us expect in a civilised community.

I strongly protest about the 31st December ultimatum that was given, bearing in mind that it is not just two services that are affected but that the whole future of rural transport in the northern area is in question. There is no doubt that if these two services are successfully thrown overboard by the monopoly bus company other services which are now under direct threat will go. This is, therefore, a big problem for everyone involved.

I urge the Minister to use his good offices with United Automobile Services, which is part of the National Bus Company, to extend this date to 31st March, 1971, at the very earliest. This should be done to avoid any irrevocable decision being carried out. After all, the councils concerned will wish to discuss the various aspects, some of which I will mention.

We would like to look at the balance sheet of the company. I have personal recollections, because I have lived in this area for most of my life, of occasions when the present monopoly bus company was in fierce competition with smaller operators, and was satisfied only when it had become the monopoly service. It is to be expected, therefore, that the profitable routes shall subsidise the unprofitable ones. The timetables for many of these routes were agreed and began to operate many years ago. Circumstances change. For this reason the various councils will want to look at the possible reorganisation of timetables and routes.

There is also the question of mini-buses and mail buses. I was rather surprised when I read the general manager's statement in the local Press—although he has been very reasonable and helpful in my negotiations with him—when he dismissed out of hand the introduction of mini-buses, mail buses and so on. This needs detailed consideration.

In our area there are many school buses. Many schoolchildren go from the village at the age of 11 to secondary schools in various parts of the area. Having fare-paying passengers on the school buses, particularly in the morning, would be very valuable for some of the workpeople in my constituency, and I am sure that the councils will want to look at this.

Sometimes small operators already running private tours and so on may well be able to provide a better service, assisted by councils, than the monopoly bus operator.

When we think of the size of the problem we can see that to say, "Before 31st December"—that is the deadline—"you must make up your mind or else", is a bit much. I hope that the Minister will use his good offices with the company.

I come to something with which the hon. Gentleman is himself involved—the profit margin demanded from the bus company. I can understand that this is needed for new investment and so on. But where many rural services are involved, because of the social necessity for them the profit margin might well be adjusted and moderated in our favour.

In a very comprehensive statement to the Press, the general manager said: Councils must decide whether they can afford a social conscience. I say with great respect that the bus company, which enjoys a near-monopoly and which has worked to that end, also has some social responsibility. I do not like to see it pushing it entirely on to the councils. I hope that the bus company will be willing to go into negotiations and will examine every aspect of this great problem before being too dogmatic about all the social responsibility being laid on the councils.

I was amazed and alarmed to find that a bus company can surrender a licence without any authority from the Traffic Commissioners, and apparently without any contact with anyone else. That is rather harsh.

There is another matter that I have been pursuing with British Rail, and in which I am sure the Minister will be interested. I live in Weardale, which has a railway line that has to be maintained in first-class condition, because we have a Portland cement works at Eastgate and about six cement trains a day come up from Darlington to the Eastgate works. Therefore, personnel have to be employed—and we are glad of that—to maintain the line, and we have crossing keepers and the like. I see the trains and coming down every day in the dale, which is a very attractive part of the Northern Region. Its tourist possibilities are very much underestimated, but the increase in road traffic over the past four years has had to be seen to be believed.

There is no doubt that if we could in some way give passenger facilities on this line, which has to be kept open for the cement trains, it would be a great asset to those in the Northern Region who want to visit beautiful Weardale, as well as being a tremendous asset to those who live there and who are otherwise cut off from the facilities of the town, from hospitals and from being able to visit friends and relatives.

I am certain that if British Railways showed a little imagination and initiative and really set about catering for the needs of the people there, a pay train operating on the line that has to be maintained anyway would be a viable, feasible proposition. Far too often in the past when the railways have been anxious about certain lines they have adopted the policy which has ensured that the evidence produced was that the line was not economic. I am convinced, now that we are in such desperate straits over public transport in the area, that a pay train can be made a viable proposition. I have written to British Railways who have promised me that detailed consideration would be given to the proposal, and I would ask for the Minister's assistance in this direction.

I hope that I have been fair and reasonable. This is a difficult problem and there is no easy, slick answer to it. I assure the Minister that my constituents and the people who represent them on local councils are anxious to accept social responsibility in this matter. The bus company has to look just beyond the profit and loss account; it has a social responsibility too. It can be much more imaginative in its approach to what a viable bus service means. Frankly I sometimes shudder when I see its lack of imagination and willingness to be complacent about the closure of these services.

We want the necessary co-operation of the Ministry, of the Durham County Council which has shown initiative in this matter by bringing the councils and the bus operators together. There is a real social need. I have said nothing about the economics of it which is important if the Northern Region is to become the prosperous region all of us want it to be. If we set out to cater for the real needs of the general public I believe that the bus service can be viable, that it can serve the interests of my constituency and I hope that the Minister will be helpful in all the negotiations which are to take place.

10.28 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine)

As the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Armstrong) has said this is a difficult subject and one to which there are no easy answers. Those of us involved with the problem are searching around in every direction to see what possible methods there are of alleviating a very difficult and deteriorating situation. To deal with the point about the railway first, the question of the Wearhead and Eastgate railway line which was closed to passengers in 1953, the fact is that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has no power to give directives to British Railways in respect of reopening passenger services.

It is entirely in the discretion of the Railways Board. If they want to run a pay train or any other sort of service on the line they can do so. If they cannot do it within their financial remit they are entitled to ask my right hon. Friend whether he is prepared to help them. The initiative is entirely with British Railways, which is reflected by the hon. Member's initiative in writing to them in the first place.

Mr. T. W. Urwin (Houghton-le-Spring)

Surely it is within the province of the Minister to make recommendations along the lines of those which my hon. Friend has made to substantiate his claim about this line?

Mr. Heseltine

I assure the hon. Gentleman that the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) changed all that in 1968. That matter is not within the province of the Minister; it is entirely for the railways.

In the context of the bus industry, there has been an acceptance, reluctant perhaps, over the years that increases in wages must be passed on in increased fares to the travelling public and that there was a reservoir of profits in the urban areas which could be used to cross-subsidise rural and less profitable and often loss-making services. That was a containable, if a deteriorating, situation because the increase in fares was usually relatively small. In the spring of this year there was a massive increase in wages, and the increase in operating costs in the bus industry led in the last three or four months of the last Government to the massive fare increases throughout the bus industry which have accelerated—not created—the decline in public transport traffic. To that must be added the difficulties of the restrictions on drivers' hours which were included in the 1968 Act and which, though they have not brought about these problems, have accelerated them.

Those are two major changes which were the responsibility of the last Government. There is the general falling away in the profits in the towns which has brought the squeeze on the rural services now run under the near monopoly situation enjoyed by the National Bus Company all over the country. The N.B.C. was a creation of hon. Members opposite and it was supposed to bring a new approach to many of the problems. In the early part of this year the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) set the financial target for the N.B.C.—a statutory target which it is obliged to try to achieve—to break even.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield (Nuneaton)

The hon. Gentleman knows very well that the Labour Minister of Transport set the overall financial target for the National Bus Company, but he did not set the financial target for the individual parts.

Mr. Heseltine

That is absolutely true. He says to the managers of the N.B.C., "Your statutory obligation is to break even", and it is the managerial responsibility of the directors of the company to decide where the composite profits will come from to meet the overall financial charges which are a burden on the financial accounts of the company. That is the management responsibility which they carry out. But the overall financial targets were set and statutorily imposed by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park.

That is the background to the situation which we inherited. As with the railways, my right hon. Friend has no statutory power to give the sort of directions to a subsidiary of the N.B.C. that the hon. Member for Durham, North-West referred to. He has power to give a general directive if he believes that there is a national interest involved, but he could not give a general directive which would conflict with the financial direction to break even. The hon. Member says that the bus company should have a social conscience. That is another point which is at the heart of this matter.

Mr. Ted Leadbitter (The Hartlepools)

Will the hon. Gentleman indicate what consideration he is giving to the problem of rural services? I understand that there is a study going on. Can he enlighten us on it?

Mr. Heseltine

I am grateful for the opportunity to do so. I want to mention that matter.

The hon. Member for Durham, North-West says that it is for the bus company to have a social conscience and to subsidise more than it is already doing loss-making services. He will be more aware than I am that many of the rural services in West Durham are loss-making services. That is part of the social conscience of the bus company, and that is containable within the financial remit that it has. What is not containable in the management's direction of the company is the £29,000 worth of loss that the services we are discussing this evening, are adding to the company's financial burden. I do not believe that we should press on the company the social conscience argument. That is the responsibility of politicians, not that of the management, and it is right that we have drawn a sharp distinction between, on the one hand, the job of managing the bus company within clear financial terms and the provision of services and, on the other, the political job of saying, "This is a social obligation that we want to under- take, and this is how we shall subsidise the bus company". That is the next stage that we have reached in the case of the United Automobile Company, and on a wider basis throughout the country for the National Bus Company through its subsidiaries.

We cannot any longer carry the burden of these services, and the hon. Gentleman has mentioned them. The Durham County Council has therefore been given three and a half months' notice. The letter went out on 16th October for the ultimate withdrawal on 31st January, 1971. The same thing has happened in the neighbouring counties and all over the country. We believe that three and a half months is sufficient.

Mr. Armstrong

The letter contains a reference to getting an affirmative reply by 31st December, not 31st January, which is two and a half months.

Mr. Heseltine

I accept that there is a difference between the withdrawal date and the date on which a decision is required. I think that I can help the hon. Gentleman, because I am assured by the National Bus Company that it does not intend to be totally rigid and inflexible, provided that the Durham County Council has taken a decision in principle to subsidise any particular services that it wishes to specify. If that assurance is given by 31st December, the bus company will not cut off its services for the sake of a day or a week at the end of January. The bus company is as anxious as anybody to try to achieve a satisfactory balance in the area in the light of what the local authority says.

On 10th November the company had a meeting with Durham County Council, and I hope that it will be followed by others. The company has already had meetings with the neighbouring authorities of Northumberland and the North Riding, and the same pattern is being repeated to try to find a way of dealing with this situation.

Perhaps I could now go on to the next question that could be asked, which is what are the Government doing—and there is a wide measure of all-party support for this approach—to make it easier for the local authorities? The hon. Gentleman will remember that section 34 of the 1968 Act contains a provision for a rural bus grant, either capital or revenue, to be provided from the Exchequer of 50 per cent. of the cost of subsidising these services. The balance of 50 per cent., which has to be found by the local authorities, is eligible for rate support grant, so there is substantial financial support from the central Government.

On 17th November we sent a circular to local authorities giving clear guidance, and the terms of the scheme are about as generous as one could devise. There are virtually no restrictions that could be applied. The scheme is designed to encourage local authorities to get on with this system. It does not merely say that they may use the United Automobile services, because they may want to do that, but it says that they can find the best local method, be it fare paying passengers on school services, pool car services, mini-bus services, postal services, composite services of goods services and passenger services, or whatever it is. We have told local authorities to find the services. If it is a capital service one could subsidise the acquisition of vehicles by a revenue service. We are prepared to stand behind them in that way. I do not believe that we could have done more in relation to this specific service. This is an imaginative use of the powers under the 1968 Act.

But that is not enough, because it could be that the restrictions of other laws, and here one has in mind the licensing laws, would be such that it would not be possible for local authorities to devise a scheme which would not be so hedged in by legislation that they could not get the imaginative approach that we want.

I am able to repeat to the House what I think many hon. Members know, that in the course of the last month we have set up working parties in Devon and West Suffolk to probe all possible ways of providing these rather flexible and imaginative services.

We have a wide range of expert opinion on our working parties. The Department is represented, and the local county councils are providing a wide range of help in this matter. When meeting the members of these working parties I have tried to make the point that we are asking them to be as imaginative and flexible as possible in saying what changes, if any, should take place to provide services which may be desirable, but which at the moment are not within the law.

Mr. Leadbitter

I know the hon. Gentleman's interest in this subject, because of his experience on the Transport Bill Committee. That is known to me, as my experience is known to him. The hon. Gentleman has mentioned working parties in certain areas. Would he consider it worth while to have such a working party in the West Durham area?

Mr. Heseltine

That is a fair question which every hon. Gentleman opposite, and indeed on this side, could ask, and it would be difficult to say that it would be unreasonable to do it in that particular area or more reasonable in another. That was one of the dilemmas with which we were faced. We shall not be choosing every place. The hon. Gentleman knows that as well as I do. We wanted to find areas which seemed reasonably typical so that we could get on, and we have now done so. We have not chosen only those areas with the best experience. We have chosen areas which will give the House and the Department the information upon which decisions can be made. I am sure that everybody has welcomed this initiative as a reasonably practical working approach to a difficult situation. It is a deteriorating situation, and I am glad that we have been able to get on with it in the way that we have.

I hope that the hon. Member for Durham, North-West, will accept my assurance of sympathy with the general situation and that the Government have done all that could be expected up to the moment in trying to find ways of dealing with it. It is not easy.

Indeed, looking forward to the solutions which may come about, we may find, just as the right hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) found, that many of the services for which there is an apparent demand are not required as much as is often claimed. This was why the right hon. Gentleman withdrew the statutory protection of the rail replacement services, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. There was a time when any rail replacement service was protected from closure and could not be withdrawn. The right hon. Member for Greenwich limited that to closure within the last two years, because it was discovered that the buses used to replace rail services were not used in the way forecast. That is why some of these services are being withdrawn in turn. This is not a defeatist argument. It is an indication of the problems with which we have to grapple.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this interesting subject. I have been delighted to do a lot of work in this sphere, and I know that many hon. Members have gone through agonies with me.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield

Before the hon. Gentleman sits down. Does he agree that another point which is worrying bus operators more is the possibility—

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

Adjourned at seventeen minutes to Eleven o'clock.