HC Deb 25 November 1987 vol 123 cc355-62

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

10.12 pm
Mr. Archy Kirkwood (Roxburgh and Berwickshire)

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the proposed withdrawal of east coast sleeper services by British Rail. I understand the difficulty that the Government are in, because there are well-established rules governing relations between Government Departments and British Rail, as it is a commercial organisation. It is an important subject and, because it also affects Berwick-upon-Tweed, my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) has indicated that he would like to speak and the Minister has indicated that he is not averse to that.

I recognise that the Government have little role to play in the day-to-day management of British Rail. It is the management of British Rail that should shoulder managerial responsibility for decisions that are made. I also recognise that steps have to be taken to minimise financial losses. Profitability is rightly a major concern. However, having said that, I do not believe that the Government should be totally disinterested in or detached from the policies of British Rail and, in particular, its proposal to withdraw passenger sleeper services from Berwick-upon-Tweed down the east coast to King's Cross in London.

I and others, including my eminent constituent the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson), feel that the Government have a residual responsibility to consider the coherence of the rail network as a whole. I am certainly persuaded that the proposed change affects the network as a whole and I therefore argue that the Government should take a direct and keen interest in the change in services planned to be introduced in May next year.

The profit motive cannot be allowed to override all other considerations. The national rail network cannot be reduced only to those routes that make profits on a clinical cost-benefit analysis. I submit that a rail network is a sophisticated and complex organisation whose contribution to the social well-being of our community cannot be reduced merely to accountants' profit and loss statements. The Government have a duty to satisfy themselves that the structure of British Rail's organisation is sensible, that the responsibility between departments within British Rail is appropriate, and that the yardsticks adopted for assessing profitability and levels of service are compatible with the Department of Transport's strategic transport plans.

The way in which the InterCity division of British Rail is calculating the returns from existing services is seriously flawed and can be said to be short-sighted. The proposed withdrawal is rightly and vigorously opposed by public opinion across a wide spectrum of views. If the Government were not aware of the extent of the opposition to the proposal, I hope that the debate will remedy that. I should tell the Minister that the problem does not just stop at Edinburgh. There is widespread apprehension forth of Edinburgh in a northerly direction that the east coast service to Aberdeen is called into some question by the consequences of the proposal that we are discussing.

I have received extensive and sustained adverse reaction across a wide spectrum of local public opinion: from representative bodies such as local authorities, community councils, the local National Farmers Union and other business organisations, as well as from travellers and individuals simply concerned about the proposed plans. In case the Minister does not know, I should tell him that there is an emotional and psychological aspect to the public opinion that I recognise and share. The closure of the Waverley route in the Borders region in Scotland caused immense traumatic damage locally. The effects of that withdrawal are still felt and the fear of any future rail withdrawals or closures resurrects the unhappy memories of the withdrawal of that route.

The proposal is viewed locally as another potential blow to the perceived economic importance of the area. It will have a profoundly depressing effect on business and commerce in the whole area and, whether it recognises the fact or not, British Rail is downgrading the economic status of the locality by virtue of its proposal. That is a matter of real regret and concern.

It is not that alternatives have not been put forward. British Rail and InterCity's analysis of the present situation has been questioned realistically, sensibly and seriously. The financial vability of the existing routes could be considerably improved by a combination of a better service and improved marketing. Does it make sense to electrify the east coast route and then close large parts of it down overnight for passenger services? Those are important questions that remain substantially unanswered.

I hope that the Minister can tell the House that this matter will be kept under review by his Department. I hope that he can allay fears that I have heard expressed recently that British Rail may even adopt the "feeder train" argument, if I may put it that way, to justify future reductions in daytime passenger InterCity services. That would make all London-bound passengers travel from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Newcastle or Edinburgh before boarding a non-stop or limited stop express InterCity train to King's Cross. That would be the beginning of the end of Berwick-upon-Tweed as a viable railway station. Berwick-upon-Tweed is crucial to the needs of my constituents and to the economy of the north-east. If sleeper services are withdrawn, it will be another significant nail in the coffin of the economic prospects and future of the region.

10.19 pm
Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) and the Minister for allowing me to take part in the debate and I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the subject. The presence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Steel), many more of my hon. Friends, the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson), the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Fallon) and others demonstrates the strong feeling that is aroused in the House and along the east coast line about this outrageous proposal, which affects areas to the north of my constituency and many to the south, including Tyneside and Teesside, whose only access to a sleeper is via Newcastle.

It is not only sleepers but the overnight service, including nightrider trains, which have been popular with students, young people and service men, that are affected. It is an extraordinary example of bogus accounting. The alleged savings are from one sector at the expense of another. The track is still there; it still has to be maintained and traffic will travel over it, unless British Rail has decided to lose all freight traffic. Apparently, the parcels division is in the process of losing the newspaper contracts. Seriously misleading accounting is leading British Rail to claim that it can make savings by abandoning the service altogether. On the contrary, it will lose, as some of its representatives have admitted in dicussions with hon. Members, a substantial amount of traffic to the airlines and coaches and it will fail to meet the needs of many of its customers.

What has characterised the service on the east coast line, particularly the sleeper service, has been the complete failure in marketing. I do not accept that the service cannot be run as a significant and valuable contributor to the effectiveness of InterCity, but it cannot be done without sensible marketing. That has been done in Edinburgh, where an attractive service is being provided. It is being expanded with the provision of lounge cars, but none of this has been done in Tyneside. I have seen no marketing of any description of the sleeper services from Berwick-upon-Tweed southwards.

Marketing also extends to fares. Business men can obtain an executive ticket on a sleeper from Edinburgh for £108. The same journey from Newcastle or Alnmouth will cost £130 for a return journey that is 200 miles shorter. That demonstrates that not even the slightest attempt has been made to market the service. Customers have been driven away systematically.

For two months after a timetable change two years ago, British Rail refused to take bookings for the sleeper service north of Newcastle because it did not believe that it was still running, so one had to book to Edinburgh to get on the train there. It is ironic that somebody who is described as a marketing manager in British Rail has been telling hon. Members that the service is running at a loss.

Mr. Michael Fallon (Darlington)

I did not want to interrupt the Adjournment debate, but I shall be brief. Is it not ironic that the same taxpayers—our constituents —will be deprived of this lifeline at a time of the year when flying is difficult and driving dangerous? Those same constituents must subsidise British Rail investment in the south-east for yuppie commuter services of £300 million per year.

Mr. Beith

That is why, when it is withdrawing services, British Rail cannot expect hon. Members from the north and Scotland to support what it is doing in the south-east. It has produced a succession of excuses. It has changed the arguments that it uses to defend this decision. At every meeting that I have attended it has produced a different set of arguments and it has refused to consider compromises and alternatives designed to meet its desire to shift traffic at night from the east coast route.

Different proposals have been put forward. I know that a northern group of Labour Members of Parliament has suggested an Edinburgh-Newcastle service via Carlisle down to Euston. I have proposed that BR should run a service via Birmingham, enabling some passengers to alight there on the way to Euston. It has refused these compromise suggestions and operated with a closed mind.

It is clear from the debate and the interest of hon. Members that we are not prepared to tolerate that closed-mind attitude and will fight until a proper service is guaranteed for the future.

10.24 pm
The Minister for Public Transport (Mr. David Mitchell)

I appreciate the fact that the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) is a regular user of the sleeper services on the east coast main line, and I can understand his concern at British Rail's decision to withdraw them from May next year. Running the railways is the job of the railways board—as the hon. Gentleman recognised—not the Government, and the withdrawal of sleeper services is a commercial decision taken by the board on commercial grounds. British Rail did not consult me or my Department before reaching its decision; nor did it consult me before deciding to start four new sleeper services, also from next May. British Rail has been trying to identify where the market warrants sleeper services and to provide them. It is withdrawing this one and starting four others. There is no reason why British Rail should consult me. Ministers do not intervene in such decisions, and it would be wrong for me to ask British Rail to change this decision.

The Government's main role is to set the rules and disciplines within which BR operates and then to leave it the freedom to get on and run the business without constant political interference. That is why we gave the chairman a clear and comprehensive set of objectives in 1983 and again last year. These objectives have been very successful in helping BR to manage the railway efficiently.

The Government have also set a date for the implementation of the policy first established by the Labour Government in their transport policy White Paper of 1977, when they stated that long distance inter-urban travel should not be subsidised. This is because the customer is ultimately best served by free competition between modes. That is why InterCity will not be eligible for grant after the end of this financial year. InterCity will then be like any other business—eager to find methods of creating, improving and retaining markets, but unable to keep going those which cannot be made profitable. Again, like any other business it will be reluctant to lose customers, which is why I hope that it has considered all the options for improving the east coast sleepers before coming to its decision.

There is no doubt that the Government have given InterCity a big challenge but, after all, as the director of that sector said only a couple of weeks ago, he likes a challenge. There is also no doubt that InterCity is critically examining its costs and revenues as never before — a salutory and extremely important task for a business which has to survive in the market place. But I must stress that it is BR's job to decide how best to meet the Government's objectives. It runs the railway and it must take the decisions—anything else would be a recipe for confusion and inefficiency.

Mr. John Home Robertson (East Lothian)

Will the hon. Gentleman take it from me that British Rail seems to have gone to considerable lengths to deter customers on this line by providing a service and timetable that are almost unusable, not only by those hon. Members who have spoken but by people on Tyneside and elsewhere? The proposed alternative is just not good enough. Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to talk further to British Rail about this matter?

Mr. Mitchell

I think that the most helpful way in which I can proceed in connection with the hon. Gentleman's allegations, and I hope that it will help the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, is if I draw the attention of the British Rail management to the points that have been made. It is right that, although the decisions rest with the board rather than with me, the board should be aware of hon. Members' views.

The Government's objectives are not the only reason why BR has been considering the future of the sleeper services on the east coast main line. At least as important, ironically, are the major improvements which electrification will bring to that line. The fastest service from Newcastle to London now takes three hours four minutes, and after the electrification that we authorised is completed it will take some 2 hours 40 minutes. The daytime services from stations such as Berwick will be fast and efficient. After the enormous investment on the line, I think that the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire can rest assured that those services will be much more secure.

There are precious few places in this country where sleeper services are run for journeys as short as two hours 40 minutes. [HON. MEMBERS: "Manchester."] I shall come to that. [HON. MEMBERS: "Liverpool."] One does not do the journey to Liverpool in two hours 40 minutes.

Precious few places have sleeper services on journeys as short as that. Indeed on many journeys to a London terminus taking that length of time no sleeper service is provided.

The result of improvements to daytime services is that demand for sleepers on the east coast line is falling. British Rail tells me that during the 40 weeks up to 9 August, an average of 14 people used the Newcastle to London sleeper services in each direction every night. From other stations on the line there were even fewer users—less than two a night between Berwick and London and only one every five nights between Alnmouth and London. That might even have been the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith).

The whole point about the changes that British Rail proposes is that they will provide a better timetabled service for those who seek to travel on the route.

Mr. David Steel (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale)

Will the Minister accept from me that about three months ago I had an altercation with a senior civil servant, whom I had better not name, who was not aware that the service from King's Cross to Edinburgh still existed?

Mr. Mitchell

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which gives me the opportunity to reaffirm that civil servants do not run the railways. I am not surprised that they do not know the details of the timetables. It is not their job to know them; it is British Rail's job.

The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire said that it would profoundly depress the economic viability of the whole area if the Berwick-upon-Tweed service was discontinued. On average, there are two sleeper passengers a night. I do not believe that the economy of the locality is so fragile and so centred on two passengers a night that British Rail should have to provide that service at a huge loss. Moreover, the fare that those people are paying probably does not even cover the cost of stopping the train at that station, let alone all the other costs inherent in the operation.

Mr. Beith

The Minister really cannot suggest that a return fare of £136 does not justify stopping the train, or that the key business men and entrepreneurs whom we try to attract to areas such as ours are irrelevant to the future economy of those areas.

Mr. Mitchell

Of course I do not suggest that. In a moment I shall give the hon. Gentleman some figures which I hope will give him cause to think whether it is a proper use of resources to provide sleeper services for as few as two passengers a night—even if one of them is the hon. Gentleman.

I understand that because the average usage from these intermediate stations is low, British Rail makes a substantial loss on the sleepers on the east coast main line. It has calculated the difference between its costs in operating the service and the revenue that it receives. This amounts to an average of some £35 for each passenger using the sleepers on this line. That is nearly half the first class fare, including sleeper supplement, between King's Cross and Newcastle, and more than half of the second class fare plus sleeper supplement between King's Cross and Newcastle or Berwick. To put it another way, the passenger pays only about two-thirds of the cost of his journey.

This subsidy of £35 for each person making a single sleeper journey is at present paid by the taxpayer through public service obligation grant. From April it could only be paid by cross-subsidy from other passengers. I am not in any position to judge whether withdrawing the service altogether is the right answer, but I am sure that the current arrangements cannot continue. I understand that British Rail has considered various alternatives——

Mr. Beith

It has not.

Mr. Mitchell

The hon. Gentleman says that it has not. I am advised that it has. British Rail advised me that routing a sleeper to Newcastle via Carlisle has been considered but that it has been concluded that that would require an extra locomotive, which would be too expensive. Locomotives cost about £1 million each now. To have a £1 million locomotive to provide a service for the hon. Gentleman is something that, I think, he would not contemplate.

Mr. Beith

Can the Minister tell me how the train gets from Edinburgh to Carstairs without the use of a diesel locomotive?

Mr. Mitchell

There will be an electrified east coast main line at some future date. Currently, British Rail is proposing to provide a service on the west coast main line, which is electrified.

What is important is the level of service that will be available to people from Berwick and similar places, and the degree of inconvenience that they will suffer. As I said, there will be a considerable financial saving for British Rail by not providing the sleeper service on that line. However, passengers can use a new service. It is important to stress that, although British Rail has not found it possible to route trains direct to Newcastle, it has made provision in next year's timetable for people who use the service now. Passengers can travel by sleeper from Euston to Edinburgh. They will have the benefit of better terminal facilities at Euston and more comfortable sleeping compartments. First class passengers can use the new lounge.

Passengers who use the new service will obviously be inconvenienced by having to change trains, but there will also be advantages — [Interruption.] If hon. Members will allow me, I shall spell out those advantages. People travelling north can have breakfast on the connecting train and still get to Berwick at 7.40 am — which is not an unreasonable time to arrive—and to Newcastle at 8.35 am. That is in ample time for a normal day's business. On the southward journey, instead of having to get a train that leaves Berwick just after 9 pm, has no restaurant car and gets to London at the inconvenient time of 5.10 am, the hon. Gentleman's constituents can catch a train at 22.30, on which they can have a snack. They then change trains in Edinburgh and arrive in London at a far more convenient time of the morning than they would have done on the old service.

Mr. Fallon

I have the job of translating all of this to my constituents. Is my hon. Friend really saying that those of my constituents who want to go home after a long day's business in London will have to go to Carlisle, then up to Edinburgh to have breakfast, catch another train and go all the way back to Darlington?

Mr. Mitchell

I am not suggesting that. People who want to go to Darlington can catch a daytime service, which is so much quicker than it used to be.

I am not in a position lo judge whether British Rail has chosen the right way to deal with the undoubted problems of the sleeper service on the east coast main line——

Mr. Beith

Why not?

Mr. Mitchell

I did not form a judgment. I have simply advised the House of the information provided by British Rail about the service. I have undertaken to draw the hon. Gentleman's comments, and those of other hon. Members who have participated in this short debate, to the attention of British Rail management. I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that I am trying to be helpful. It would be wrong if I did not give to him all the information that British Rail has made available that relates to the points that he has raised.

As I said, I am not in a position to judge whether British Rail chose the best way. Nevertheless, something had to be done: there can be no justification for a subsidy of —35 for each passenger using such a service.

Mr. Beith

That is not true.

Mr. Mitchell

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will make that point to British Rail. If he can demonstrate that it is untrue, perhaps he will write to me, too, and I will ensure that his letter is discussed with British Rail.

British Rail should not bear the loss itself. It cannot forget for a moment the competition that it faces. Its product must be adjusted constantly to take account of new patterns of travel. British Rail is taking off one very underused service and putting on four new services in areas where it expects more demand.

Mr. Kirkwood

Where?

Mr. Mitchell

I should be happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with details of services in other areas.

Such commercial decisions can be hard on existing passengers, and the House and the travelling public deserve a good explanation of the decisions taken, the reasons for them and the measures being taken to help those affected. It is clear from this debate that British Rail's explanation to local people has not been good enough. I accept that. I understand that the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire will take up these points with British Rail, and I have undertaken to supply British Rail with a copy of the report of the debate. That is the right thing for the hon. Gentleman to do, and I hope that British Rail can satisfy him. I hope that he will remember that his constituents will soon benefit from the biggest single railway investment undertaken since the nationalisation of the railways. The investment of £367 million on east coast main line electrification will ensure that the trains are so much faster——

Mr. Beith

Because they will not stop anywhere.

Mr. Mitchell

—that many people will not need sleeper services. They will be able to reach Newcastle and Darlington in time for business engagements in the morning.

But having said all that, I accept that the hon. Gentleman is entitled to answers to the questions that he has asked, and I trust that British Rail will provide those answers. But as he probes the matter, I believe that he will find that it is not as he envisaged it when he began this Adjournment debate tonight.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.