Railways (Investment) (Hansard, 16 June 1982)

§ 9. Mr. Spriggs
asked the Secretary of State for Transport whether any investment proposals have been put to him by British Rail in connection with the development of its engineering workshop capacity.

§ Mr. David Howell
Since 1975 the board has been investing about £15 million per year, at 1982 prices, in new equipment for its workshops; the value of the individual items is usually below the level which requires them to be reported to me.

§ Mr. Spriggs
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when the railways board was proposing the closure of railway workshops there were thousands of miles of railway track on which trains were running at reduced speeds because the tracks were unsafe for normal speeds? The inter-city trains between the north and the south are running at half their normal strength because coaches have to be left in the sidings awaiting repairs, and this at a time when the board is proposing to close railway workshops.

§ Mr. Howell
I think that the hon. Gentleman does not fully appreciate that the problem of overcapacity in British Rail's engineering workshops, particularly the overcapacity in railway freight wagons, arises from the fact that British Rail now has a new fleet of freight wagons which last longer, do better work and do not require the renewal and replacement at the rates for which the original BREL workshops were designed. That is the overcapacity problem. It is not to do with whether new equipment can be afforded, but whether it is actually needed, and in the case of freight wagons it is not.

§ Mr. Bagier
The right hon. Gentleman speaks as if the British railway system were the only one to provide work for the railway workshops. When will the right hon. Gentleman recognise that railway systems all over the world, and not least in the Third world, are expanding at a tremendous rate? From what can be seen, British manufactured railway wagons are outside the race. Will the right hon. Gentleman encourage those workshops and endeavour to get them into the race to get that business?

§ Mr. Howell
Yes, and I wholly endorse the sentiment behind the hon. Gentleman's question. He is absolutely right to say that there are opportunities in export markets. The Government will give all the help that they can on exports. I know that the hon. Gentleman is the first to recognise that those markets are highly competitive and that it requires a great deal of effort and cost cutting to get into the markets to win the orders. I endorse the hon. Gentleman's point. Those are the markets of the future for British Rail Engineering Ltd. and other manufacturers in this country.

§ Mr. Stott
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that my constituents and their families in Horwich and the constituents of my hon. Friends in Shildon and in Swindon are immensely relieved at British Rail's decision to withdraw the workshop closures for the rest of this year? Will he also accept that the long-term future of those workshops depends entirely on the investment and growth in the railway industry, and that his decisions about investment in rolling stock, renewals and electrification are eagerly awaited throughout the whole of the rail industry, but particularly in the workshops, as they will preserve the jobs of a hard-working, dedicated and productive work force? We look forward to the day when the Secretary of State can come to the House and give us some idea of how much money he is prepared to spend on British Rail.

§ Mr. Howell
I understand that British Rail has deferred the closure proposals for the time being. Decisions about capacity and what is needed are matters for British Rail. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman heard what I said. I repeat that the problem, in particular with the wagon works, is that there is simply not the demand for wagons on the scale for which the engineering workshops were built, and it is unlikely to be there in the future. That is the result of the advance in technology and of new investment. It is not the result of lack of investment. The need to rationalise engineering workshop capacity presents a real problem. That is, of course, a matter for British Rail, and I believe that it is handling the problem in the right way.