HC Deb 10 July 1989 vol 156 cc673-5
9. Mr. Adley

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he last met the railway unions; and if he has any plans to meet them again soon to discuss Government investment in the railways.

Mr. Portillo

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State met leaders of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, the National Union of Railwaymen and the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen on 12 July 1988 to discuss a report on the quality of service on British Rail. No meeting is arranged at present.

Mr. Adley

I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Can he confirm that for five years, British Rail has had no recourse to the national loans fund? That being so, what precisely did our right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer mean when he threatened to cut the level of investment? Will my hon. Friend assure the House that he and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State are using their best endeavours with the unions and management to try to settle the current industrial dispute? Can he tell the House what those best endeavours are and, as according to his answer it is now a year since he met the unions, will he, when he meets them, tell them that the railway industry would be far better served by having one union rather than three and that that might be part of any package discussed when the strike is settled?

Mr. Portillo

I hasten to point out to my hon. Friend that the reason such meetings have not occurred is not that we have been refusing to meet people who wish to meet us. On the point about my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exhequer, I think that my hon. Friend would have made the same point if he had been there. When one listened to the unions urging that there should be more investment in the railways on the very day when the railways were shut down and when they were providing such a poor advertisement for themselves in attracting new customers, it was only reasonable that my right hon. Friend should point out the extraordinary irony of that position. My hon. Friend will appreciate that whatever the position vis-a-vis the national loans fund, this nationalised industry has been heavily indebted in the past and many of its debts have had to be written off by the Government. The industry is still heavily dependent on public sector obligation grant.

Mr. Dalyell

Does the Minister think that Rab Butler —the former chief of the Secretary of State—when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, would have had the unwisdom to make those public comments? The rail unions have given the Department a table of investment comparing the amount of state money available in Germany, Belgium and France. How do Ministers explain the fact that the level of state money being given to the railways here is so much less than that in every other European country?

Mr. Portillo

The hon. Gentleman glides swiftly from talking about state money to investment, as though the two were one and the same, which they are not. As the amount of subsidy in this country has fallen—that is, the money needed to make up for the losses that the railways make each year—so the amount of investment has risen by and large. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to talk about comparisons, he must compare the fact that investment in the railways today is higher than in any year of the last Labour Government and at levels rarely seen since the 1960s. Those are the relevant comparisons and that is the background against which the strikes are occurring.

Mr. Yeo

Does my hon. Friend share my concern at the total failure of Opposition Members to condemn the strike, the only certain consequence of which is great damage to the travelling public and, in the long run, to British Rail's own employees?

Mr. Portillo

I do, indeed, find it sad and extraordinary. Opposition Members have been given the opportunity today either to condemn the strike or simply to urge that the unions should come to the talks, yet they have refused to take those opportunities. The Opposition spokesman now talks about whether the Government accept the findings of the tribunal, yet I do not remember him urging the unions to go to the tribunal in the first place.

Mr. Alfred Morris

In regard to investment in the railways, will there be an announcement today, in the first place to this House, about the projected rail link to Manchester airport which, as the Minister will know, is of major importance to the north-west of England as a whole?

Mr. Portillo

Yes, it is intended that there should be an announcement on that subject. If question No. 12 is reached, there will be some news.

Mr. Madel

Can my hon. Friend confirm that if the railway unions wish to negotiate a new system of arbitration in the railway industry, he would expect British Rail management to respond positively, but that once a new system of arbitration came in he would also expect both unions and management to abide by its recommendations?

Mr. Portillo

There is an existing system of negotiating machinery and arbitration. One of the unions has been willing to go to arbitration—so far, the other two have not. The question now is whether those other two unions will discuss the decision made by the arbitrator in the case of the TSSA. The railway management is clearly working with the negotiating machinery that is in place today. If decisions are taken to change that negotiating machinery, that will be a question for further consideration. However, that does not seem relevant to the point that arbitration machinery is in place today and that one union has used it. The railway management is now offering to talk to all the unions on the basis of that decision.

Mr. Prescott

We are pleased to hear that the Minister now believes that the Chancellor's statement was ironic, if not untruthful. That is a further example of the Government being economic with the truth, as they are with the investment figures, which fly in contradiction with the evidence that they gave to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.

Will the Minister give examples of the unions refusing to meet the Secretary of State? Will he also make it absolutely clear that I have spent much time and effort going around all the parties involved, asking them to come to the table and to negotiate and discuss these issues? Even today, does he not accept that the tribunal cannot deal with the bargaining issue which is equally important and determined by ballots, under the rules?

Mr. Portillo

Of course, the tribunal cannot deal with that, but we are beyond that stage. The management is saying that it is willing to talk about the arbitrator's decision on pay. Indeed, the management has always been willing to talk about the bargaining machinery. I do not understand how the point arises. We are now beyond the stage of the tribunal in the case of the TSSA.

Referring to the hon. Gentleman's offer to mediate, the three qualities that I would look for in a mediator are fairmindedness, charm and tact—so I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is not on my short list.