SOUTH YORKSHIRE WATERWAY (Hansard, 22 October 1973)

§ Mr. Richard Kelley (Don Valley)

At this late hour I do not intend to say as much as I would have said had I been a little more fortunate than having my name come out of the hat on a Scottish night. I have often been fascinated by the verbosity of the Scot and his complete contempt for the moving hands of the clock.

The matter to which I wish to draw the attention of the House has been seriously considered by many people over the past few years. It is the problem of the better utilisation of Britain's rather ancient waterways to solve modern transport problems. Many of the old canals have been found to be of little use in this context, but some have certainly been found to be of real potential value if they were brought up to the standard which would enable modern engineering and marine technology to be brought into use.

Such a waterway is the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation. A great deal of research has been done to find out whether any great economic and commercial advantage could accrue to the area and to the nation if this waterway were brought up to the present day bulk freight navigation standard;. and in every case the firm answer has been the affirmative. The canal came into use about 200 years ago and links the Tinsley area of Sheffield with the great Humber ports, ports which are growing daily in importance as our trade reaches out eagerly to continental European and Scandinavian markets.

How can we survive in the present day without realising the unique importance of water as a means of transport? Roads are worn out and have to be repaired. Railways run on tracks which pose constant problems to large groups of men who have to work to keep the tracks in order at the weekends for use during the working days. But water is always there. It never wears out. We cannot destroy the surface of a canal by loads which are too heavy, bad tyres, or anything of that kind.

Water can be made into steam or converted into ice, but it returns to its original state and is the element that provides for the passage of ships over 938 its surface to all parts of the world. It is the greatest common property of mankind and we should be foolish if we failed to exploit its great potentialities.

A scheme has been submitted to improve the carrying capacity of the Sheffield and South Yorkshire canal to take the larger ships and barges which can be manoeuvred in modern canals and carry very heavy and bulky loads from industrial centres of production to the open sea. This is what the improvement of the Sheffield and South Yorkshire navigation is about, but there are other factors beyond the hard cash nexus.

There is the question of the place in which we live. Who in this House has not been faced with the problem of the juggernaut tearing the heart out of his villages and trying to reconcile that with the need to earn our bread? If we could get this scheme adopted and approved by the Minister we could carry 2 million tons of cargo from Tinsley to the Humber in 22,000 journeys as against the 166,660 journeys which would be necessary by road on the modern juggernauts. This would save 3 million gallons of fuel, all of which is imported, and the saving to the balance of payments would be hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The extra bonus would be that we own the water upon which the craft sail. There would be no charge, other than for ordinary maintenance, which is not very considerable when we realise that for 200 years very little money has been spent on the maintenance of the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation.

The problem of extracting oil from a diminishing and less reliable source is becoming a national consideration. Surely with the Middle East situation Her Majesty's Government must be looking for some means of reducing our enormous dependence upon this source of fuel.

The scheme that I have mentioned will provide a cheaper form of transport for goods suited to this mode of carriage. It will also provide expanses of water which can be used by the people, because the water belongs to the people and we can do nothing to alter that.

The use of this waterway depends upon the Government's attitude to this scheme. Either the canal becomes a Government investment or it becomes a public failure. It cannot remain as it is. I am asking for an opportunity to be given for water to 939 compete reasonably with roads and railways, for ordinary people still to have somewhere to go where the stress of life is no greater than the lapping of water against the hull of a lazy barge, for great cargoes to be brought down from the industrial heart of Yorkshire in barges built by our own people to take up to 700 tons, which can be placed aboard a mother ship, taken across the North Sea, locked into the canal system of continental Europe, and deliver their loads, untouched by human hand, to ports on the River Danube. This is what the scheme offers to us as a nation and we would be fools not to grasp the opportunity with both hands.

Systems operating today—lighter aboard ship and barge aboard catamaran—make all this possible. Other European countries are developing these systems at a great pace. The first catamaran to take lighters on board was launched in Denmark in August. Many others are being built in Europe. If we do not take this opportunity to bring this important waterway up to the standards required by modern techniques we shall be missing a great opportunity.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. Kelley) for having so succinctly made his case at this late hour following the long debate on Scottish local government.

I am in some difficulty because the hon. Member knows that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has recently made an announcement to the effect that he is hoping to reach a decision and to make a statement about this proposal in the fairly near future. That being the case, I can only outline the many factors which need to be taken into account and carefully balanced before that decision is made. I can assure the hon. Member that his eloquent plea will be carefully considered by the Secretary of State and myself in arriving at our conclusion.

As the hon. Member has said, this matter has been the subject of numerous proposals in the past. In 1966 the British Waterways Board submitted a proposal to the then Minister of Transport for an improvement scheme which would have cost £2.6 million. The then Minister 940 took the view that the scheme depended for its success on the waterway capturing substantial new traffic. She concluded however that there was then insufficient evidence that the increase in capacity of the waterway would attract enough traffic to provide an adequate return for this public investment.

More recently the board engaged consultants to examine the potential traffic for an improved waterway, over the period up to the year 2000. With this new information the board submitted in May last year a further improvement scheme which it now estimates would cost £3.1 million. This includes about £800,000 for deferred maintenance which the board considers will be necessary whether or not the waterway is improved to the new capacity proposed.

The present major traffic on the Navigation is coal, but this has been declining, and the board and its consultants agree that if there is to be a growth in traffic in the future, it must come from other non-traditional cargoes. They argue that the economies of scale which the larger waterway would permit would enable freight carriers substantially to lower their overall freight rates—by something like 25–30 per cent.—and that after investing in new craft, they would be able to attract new business. The board estimates that to pay the interest and depreciation charges on the capital expenditure involved, the tolls from non-coal traffic would need to increase in the first 10 years by approximately ten-fold.

The consultants examined the pattern of industry in the area and considered how this might be expected to develop over the next quarter century. There are naturally difficulties in extrapolation over long periods, but there will no doubt be a substantial growth in the volume of commodities produced in the area of a type potentially available for carriage on the waterway. The real question then becomes: what proportion of the likely future traffic can actually be attracted to the waterway?

This is not an easy judgment to make. It involves not only guessing how waterway freight rates will be able to move but also a judgment on the extent to which the competitive transport modes—railway and road haulage—alter their own policies to face any new competition that might arise from the waterway.

941 My Department has examined in great detail the financial return which the board postulated in the light of its own experience and also the consultants' opinion, but we concluded that there was a substantial element of risk in investment on those terms. Therefore, in March I asked Sir Frank Price, the Chairman of the Board, to seek more concrete evidence that the waterway would, if improved as proposed, attract the necessary additional traffic to justify the expenditure of over £2 million.

We received the results of the board's search for this evidence in July. With the help of the Rotherham Area Development Corporation, the board had canvassed some 365 firms and organisations in the area. As a result of these approaches, 185 of those firms canvassed gave undertakings that they would offer for quotation on the waterway, if improved as proposed, a total of 950,000 tons of freight in 1975. Those undertakings have been given without commitment by the firms and organisations that they would in the event place their goods for carriage by waterway. Nevertheless, a figure of 950,000 tons is a substantial total. It compares with the 750,000 tons of traffic that the board estimates would need to be carried annually to finance the operation. The task facing the board would be to win about 80 per cent. of the traffic for which promises to seek quotations have been made. That is the major task for the board.

The independent carriers are important because the board carries less than one-fifth of non-coal traffic on the waterway. The independent carriers would need to invest substantially in new vessels and the like. I have asked the board to consider with the carriers ways in which the board might be guaranteed sufficient revenue to service the new public money required by this proposal. The board has approached the carriers, but so far the carriers have not felt able to enter any firm financial commitment, although they have expressed their willingness to open negotiations with potential customers and to invest the necessary capital.

I realise the difficulty of carriers giving now, two or three years in advance of improvement of the waterway, any guarantees. If such guarantees had been forthcoming this would have settled the issue. Those guarantees have not been forthcoming and, in their absence, there is the difficult task of making the best 942 judgment, on all the evidence available, about whether the necessary traffic will materialise. That judgment remains to be made.

The hon. Member rightly said that this was not simply a matter of strict economics. I assure him that the Secretary of State and myself will pay attention to the environmental improvements which potentially could be achieved. I agree with him that the more heavy freight that travels by water the less heavy lorry traffic, with its fumes, dirt, noise and vibrations, is likely to go on the roads. In principle we should like to see much more traffic moving on the waterways and indeed on the railways. But this can happen only if the traffic is actually diverted—if shippers and hauliers positively decide to take their freight off the roads and put it on the waterborne barges. It is not enough to say that the environment would gain from canal transport. Much more crucial is the need to demonstrate that the transfer would take place, for without that transport, the environment gains not at all. In calculating the pros and cons of this project, I give the assurance that the Government will give full weight to the environmental advantages, but the issue comes down to the actual volume of freight, which would otherwise be carried on unsuitable roads through towns and villages, which can be attracted to the waterway.

I make no bones about it. It is a difficult decision, and we have not yet taken it. Before we do, the hon. Gentleman's views and those of his constituents and others with whom I have had personal discussions during my visits to Rotherham will be fully taken into account. We appreciate the sentiments of local people who would like to see this Navigation improved. I recognise and, indeed, share the feelings of environmentalists who believe that canal transport is cleaner, quieter and less obtrusive than the juggernaut lorries, and I am as concerned as is the hon. Gentleman about the amenity aspects of the waterways, having travelled on them myself from time to time.

All in all, I can tonight give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I will decide whether this investment is justified on the basis of all the facts and 943 with full sympathy for the views of those who wish to see waterways playing a larger part in the commercial life of the country.

The Government cannot fail to have regard to the taxpayers' money and to the overriding necessity of getting value for it. In the end, the basic question of benefits comes down to a judgment of 944 the volume of traffic which the waterway could attract if improved. That is the basic issue on which my right hon. Friend and I are now seeking to reach a view, and my right hon. Friend expects to make a statement to the House as soon as we have done so.