§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. David Davis.]
§ 10 pm
§ Mr. David Evennett (Erith and Crayford)I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise a number of issues concerning transport in south-east London.
Given the dreadful weather that we have experienced in the past few days, I think it appropriate to begin by praising London Regional Transport for its work to keep services running in Greater London, and the local authorities—particularly my borough of Bexley—for their sterling work in clearing and gritting London's roads. However, British Rail services in south-east London last Friday were mixed, and some were very poor. Many local people spent hours waiting for a train and more hours on the train in their endeavours to travel to work and home. Even today, the service was very poor, and the statement by British Rail's director of operations that the problem was caused by the "wrong type of snow" is quite laughable.
The issues that I wish to discuss, however, relate to the local transport network as it affects my constituents—and, of course, those of my colleagues in neighbouring constituencies. I do not intend to criticise the Government or to embarrass my hon. Friend the Minister who, together with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State and his ministerial colleagues, is trying to establish an up-to-date and coherent policy for transport in London. Many of my constituents—including me—regret the fact that such a policy is so long overdue.
I intend to highlight a number of the problems caused by the inadequate and poorly co-ordinated transport system that serves Erith and Crayford—problems that cause my constituents frustration and annoyance. They include bus, road, rail and tube services—or, rather, the lack of tube services, given the failure to extend the London underground or the docklands light railway network to our part of London.
I believe that south-east London is the worst served area of Greater London. The fact that it is the only part of London not connected to the underground network reinforces the generally held view that other parts of the capital are far better served. That complaint is frequently made by my constituents. I shall return to the lack of tube services later in my speech.
Of the complaints that I receive from constituents about public transport, most relate to the rail services provided by British Rail's Network SouthEast. I use that service regularly. However, I can neither recommend nor praise it. Many of my constituents are commuters who use the three Dartford-London lines via Greenwich, Bexleyheath and Sidcup. On all three lines there are persistent complaints of unreliable services, frequent cancellations or late running and dirty and overcrowded trains. The ancient rolling stock has single compartments in which many travellers, particularly women, are, quite rightly, unwilling to travel, especially outside the rush hour. There has been the promise of new Networker rolling stock, but to date that is all it seems to be—merely a promise. The new stock should have been operational two years ago. If it had been, the problems of last Friday and today would have been lessened.
707 I personally count myself lucky. Of the three lines, the one that serves Crayford, the station nearest to my home, is the least troublesome. It is not as good or as bad as lines in other parts of London; it is average to mediocre. However, those of my constituents who live in Erith, Belvedere or Slade Green are not so lucky. Those who use Barnehurst and Bexleyheath stations suffer far more. One constituent told me recently that when he tells people who do not live in the area that he lives in Barnehurst they usually comment, "Oh, I know the place—where the trains never run from." Cancellations on that line are so frequent that people hear about them on the radio every day. Apart from the latest pop tunes on Capital Radio, Barnehurst must be the most well-known name in London.
I appreciate that the Minister is not responsible for operational matters relating to rail services. They are quite properly left to British Rail. However, his Department is ultimately responsible. It is essential, therefore, that he be made aware of just what is going on in our part of London. That is what I am endeavouring to do by means of the debate.
I should like to be able to say that local bus services are in much better shape than rail services, but I can only describe the bus services in my area as poor. In all fairness, the tendering process in my area a couple of years ago was partly successful. Most of the routes transferred to Maidstone Boroline are efficiently operated by a company that uses a well-maintained and modern fleet of buses. However, the same cannot be said for the services run by Bexleybus. That is not an independent operator, as many local residents are led to believe by the change of livery. It is one of the endless string of London Transport subsidiaries.
The changes made by Bexleybus and LRT got off to a poor start a few years ago and never improved. New routes were introduced that were not supported by local people, either as passengers or residents. Users of established routes found that journeys previously completed on one bus now involved at least one change. Residents' views were ignored as quiet residential roads were taken over as bus routes. The problems did not end there. A fleet of ancient, poorly maintained buses, belching fumes and constantly breaking down, staff shortages and other operating problems have all led to the provision of an extremely poor service in our area. It is true that Bexleybus services have improved of late. The number of complaints that I receive is down on the number that were made to me a year ago. However, there is still much to be done. I understand that Bexleybus will give way to another operator for some of the routes.
The tendering exercise caused endless problems, not least because painting the buses a different colour led constituents to believe that the bus services had been privatised. In my view, it would have been far better if they had been privatised, provided that LRT was responsible only for awarding contracts and was not connected with any of the route operators. If that had been the case, LRT would have withdrawn routes from Bexleybus. As it is, my constituents have had the worst of both worlds.
On the roads there is at least some cheer, although the seemingly endless carriageway repairs and alterations on the A2 trunk road make life far from perfect for motorists. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn)—my friend and neighbour—will raise the issue in an Adjournment debate later this week. I am certain that he will cover the salient issues in greater detail.
708 There is one point relating to the A2 on which I wish to comment. In recent years, the Falconwood-Kidbrooke section of the A2 was completed, vastly improving communications with central London and with the M25. However, travel from my constituency to anywhere north of the Thames other than through central London involves using the Blackwall or Dartford tunnels, which are plagued by frequent closures, lane restrictions and tailbacks, all of which have a detrimental effect on businesses that have located in my area, encouraged by the prospect of good road communications. Those businesses, particularly warehousing and distribution companies located in Belvedere and Thamesmead, were attracted by the proximity of the channel ports and the M25 and the promise of a new local road network linked to an improved Dartford crossing and to the east London river crossing, giving access to the midlands and the north.
Obviously, the new Dartford bridge is nearly completed and will bring welcome relief for users of the M25, although I am concerned about the prospect of the Dartford tunnel's being closed for repairs almost as soon as the bridge opens. However, the delay in proceeding with the east London river crossing is causing most concern among local business men and the business community in my area. There seems to have been an endless string of delays on that long overdue and much-needed scheme—not caused by the Department of Transport, I hasten to add in deference to my hon. Friend the Minister. However, I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State will make a speedy decision on the bridge design. I hope that he will support the Calatrava design, which would make a worthy and fitting landmark. At any rate, we must have the bridge, and we want the construction to be completed with all possible speed.
Another issue that has caused widespread disappointment, particularly among my constituents in Thamesmead, is the failure to extend either the underground network or the docklands light railway to our side of the river into Thamesmead. As my hon. Friend will know, it was originally intended that the Jubilee line would run to Thamesmead and many people, myself included, are dismayed that that proposal or a realistic alternative has not been implemented.
Thamesmead is a growing community, which is managed by the local people via its own company, Thamesmead Town. It is a unique concept, with a board of directors elected by local residents making all decisions and supported by a first-class team of professionals under the control of the chief executive, Philip Glascoe. Under the company's control, Thamesmead has been transformed into a real town in the making, with sites for business, a new town centre and the construction of homes for sale and rent.
As a community, Thamesmead is poorly served by public transport, particularly in north Thamesmead, where commuters face a long walk or a lengthy wait for a bus to or from Abbey Wood, a British Rail station, to get to or from central London. Thamesmead also has no direct road links to the A2 and M25 or north across the river, and further development of north Thamesmead will be hampered unless transport facilities are improved. It is therefore vital that Thamesmead is linked to the underground or the docklands light railway, and it seems ludicrous that both services will be terminiated just across the river. I urge my hon. Friend carefully to consider those issues.
709 Transport in the 1990s is a major issue, and there is little point in dwelling upon the wider economic issues such as comparative levels of investment in the past or the need for the country to create wealth to have funds to invest unless the action that is required is made clear. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said last Saturday, we need good public sector services. We need also to look forward. Commuters, shoppers, students, the elderly—all sections of the community—have differing travel needs, but they have a common complaint in my area, they are dissatisfied with the service provided on public transport in south-east London. Excuses and apologies are simply not enough. Hard-pressed commuters returning home after being at work all day do not need the added stress and problems created by late, overcrowded rail services.
For people without a car, shopping by bus in Bexleyheath, Erith market or Crayford should not be a major expedition. But buses, which run on mainly congested local roads, are endlessly late, or short of staff and, therefore, do not run. My constituents want action. They do not expect it overnight, but they expect my hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues in the Department of Transport, including the Secretary of State, to give a commitment that action is being and will be taken. They want a commitment that my hon. Friend the Minister and the Department understand and appreciate the transport problems in the area.
It is no good trotting out figures on investment and passenger numbers or giving British Rail statistics. To be blunt, my constituents are not interested in whether more people are using the M4 or whether billions are being spent on rail schemes in west London or the rest of the country. They do not want palliatives from the Minister or the Department on what may happen in 1995 and beyond.
My constituents are suffering at the sharp end now and want to know what will be done to improve the transport system in south-east London. Headlines such as the one in the Evening Standard tonight, which said "BR warning as it blames the wrong type of snow", are disgraceful and should never be allowed in a public service.
My constituents expect the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Minister to ensure that the services for which the Department is responsible to be efficiently and effectively run, that the east London river crossing is executed with all possible speed, that the extension of the underground or the docklands light railway to Thamesmead is carefully reconsidered, and that money provided by taxpayers and the travelling public is used by the public sector transport authorities—especially British Rail—to provide better services.
I stress that action is vital. My constituents, especially the thousands of captive commuters who have no alternative but to commute by rail, expect action. If that action is not forthcoming, they will feel, justifiably, that the Government have failed them. We must not let them down for they, together with local business and industry, are the wealth creators of Britain. They need good communications to function and function effectively. At present, transport in south-east London is insufficient and ineffective. We look to the Government for action.
§ The Minister for Shipping and Public Transport (Mr. Patrick McLoughlin)I congratulate my hon. Friend for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Evennett) on raising such an important subject in this Adjournment debate. Alas, when he found out that he had obtained the Adjournment debate, he did not know the weather conditions that the country would be suffering. I echo his praise for the local authority workers from Bexley in his constituency to whom he paid tribute for all that they did over the weekend to ensure that people could go about their business. I also pay tribute—although perhaps today is not a good day to do so—to the many manual workers and ordinary workers of British Rail who worked in the most horrendous conditions in an attempt to ensure that a service was operated. That is perhaps a slightly different point from my hon. Friend's operational point about the men who were out trying to sort out the chaotic conditions at the weekend.
As my hon. Friend is aware, Network SouthEast was badly affected last week by frozen trains and rails, which severely restricted the service that it could offer. Over the weekend, I understand that it was able to run a half-hourly service on all three routes from Charing Cross and Cannon street via Dartford. This morning, the picture was worse, with a shortage of rolling stock due to frozen electrics and blown fuses. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Transport made clear comments on that point today during questions.
I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford for giving me this opportunity to say something about the Government's approach to transport in London and respond to some of his specific points. Unavoidably, I shall give him some statistics, although he says that he does not want them. If the statistics were not as they are and if we had not taken some of the action to which I shall refer, the position would be a great deal worse.
It matters very much to the Government that London should have a good transport service. It is partly a question of ensuring that London maintains its position as a pre-eminent centre of business and finance; but we also want to make London a better place in which to live and work. Good transport to, from and within London is vital to securing both those objectives.
My hon. Friend referred to the improvements to the road network. One of our priorities is to provide good alternative routes for traffic which does not need to go through London. Since 1983, the number of heavy goods vehicles entering London has fallen by 25 per cent., and the number entering central London has nearly halved. My hon. Friend's constituency will have shared in those benefits. To reinforce that welcome trend, we are widening the M25 to increase its capacity. The £86 million partly privately-financed bridge to relieve traffic congestion at the Dartford tunnel is due to open later this year. Remarkable progress is being made with that exciting engineering project. Recently, we published an action plan with proposals for improving the traffic flow on the M25 as a whole.
We have a £1.9 billion programme for improving trunk roads within London over the next 10 years or so. It is not part of our policy to make it easier for commuters to drive 711 into central London. Our priorities are to relieve the worst bottlenecks and accident black spots and to ensure that London is properly linked with the national road network.
A key scheme in the programme is the east London river crossing, to which my hon. Friend referred. The crossing will greatly improve access to east London and we are giving a high priority to its early construction. As my hon. Friend will know, orders have already been made authorising the construction of the new trunk road. Subject to the satisfactory completion of the remaining statutory procedures, we hope that construction can start in 1992 and that the new road will open in 1996.
Public inquiries into the design of the Thames bridge have recently closed, and we are awaiting the inspector's report. I hope that my hon. Friend will therefore appreciate that, in the circumstances, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the merits of the Department's proposed bridge design or of any alternative design suggested to the inquiries.
Perhaps I can now turn to public transport. My hon. Friend has made some criticisms of London Transport's route tendering system as it has affected south-east London. It may be helpful if I comment briefly on the background to the system.
An important step towards introducing more competition to London was taken by London Buses Ltd., with our active encouragement. when it created 12 subsidiary companies which actually carry on the day-to-day business of operating bus services. The new units, each with a small number of garages, operate more like local bus companies. They are smaller, and they are closer to the local community. Their management are better placed to assess the transport needs of the area and to respond quickly to changes in those needs. Decisions on key issues, such as pay and bus routes, are increasingly being taken at the local level, which is where they should be taken. We intend to privatise those subsidiaries when bus services in London are fully deregulated.
The second step that London Transport is taking to promote competition in the London bus market in advance of deregulation and privatisation is the introduction of route tendering. Under the London Regional Transport Act 1984, LT has a statutory duty to invite tenders for the provision of appropriate services and to accept them where that would be more efficient.
Since tendering began in 1985, it has brought a range of benefits to LT, to LBL and, most of all, to passengers themselves. At present, about 35 per cent. of LT's bus mileage is now contracted out, and the rate of tenders is set to continue at around 5 per cent. per annum. It is worth noting that the performance of the LBL subsidiaries improves when they start operating on tendered routes. That shows that the pressure put on them to perform well and to maintain the high level of service required is forcing LBL companies to raise their standards.
Therefore, tendering provides a valuable driving force for change, by making LBL, enter the real world of market forces. Its unit costs are also falling towards that of its competitors: LBL unit costs have reduced by 19 per cent. since 1985–86, and routes on the tendered services operate at a lower cost per mile than the remaining LBL services. Passengers are getting more and better services for less public money, which can only benefit the taxpayer and passenger alike.
As my hon. Friend has said, a large number of bus services in south-east London are now run by independent 712 operators under contract to LT. In particular, the bus network in the Bexley area has recently been re-tendered, and a number of routes, previously operated on a tendered basis by the local LBL subsidiary, have been awarded to independent operators. Although there are often teething problems when a new operator begins running recently won tendered routes, I understand from LT that the routes are now operated using newer vehicles than under LBL and that the disruption to services during the transitional period has been kept to a minimum. The quality of service as monitored by LT's tendered bus unit is satisfactory.
Where a loss of routes results in job losses, it will obviously be traumatic to individuals, but LBL does its utmost to absorb extra capacity within its organisation. I understand that all staff at Bexleybus have been reallocated following the recent tender losses. In some cases, moreover, cost savings arrived at through tendering allow LT to increase operated mileage, which requires more staff and creates extra jobs.
In addition to those measures covering all London bus services, LT can and does monitor closely performance against contract specifications on all its tendered routes. It takes firm action over poor performance. For example, if a contractor operates at less than the specified performance level, he incurs contract penalties. There is no incentive for contractors to cut corners. The ultimate sanction is to take the contract away and replace the contractor with a different operator. That has happened in the past. There is no question of LT allowing tendering to lead to a decline in performance levels. In practical tern-is, therefore, I think it seems clear that passengers on the L,T tendered routes stand a good chance of getting an excellent level of service. The number of contracts to be put out for tender was the subject of a document given to LT under the direction of the previous Secretary of State for Transport.
As LT continues to extend its tendering programme, we have high hopes that the overall level of bus service provision throughout London will continue to improve. I therefore conclude that the bus market in south-east London is now in a more exciting and competitive mode than it has been before. Restructuring and tendering have together led to more flexible and reliable services, which are also responsive to passenger demand.
My hon. Friend also referred to the possible extension of the docklands light railway and the Jubilee line to Thamesmead. As he will know, the process of regeneration of docklands began with the construction of the docklands light railway, which was then seen simply as a catalyst. The scale of development that this stimulated has in turn justified upgrading the railway and extending it to the City. The push further eastwards is being taken forward by the Beckton extension, which will open up the royal docks. The unprecedented scale and pace of development which has been taking place in docklands has so far exceeded all early expectations.
Employment on the Isle of Dogs alone is forecast to rise to at least 90,000, and possibly as much as 150,000, by the end of the century. Docklands will therefore need much greater accessibility to the London commuter market than can be secured via the existing road and public transport network—already under great pressure, as my hon. Friend pointed out—and the docklands light railway. That is why the Government accepted the conclusions of the east London rail study and approved the deposit of the Bill for the Jubilee line extension. It will open up the docklands to 713 a wide catchment area, including Kent and south-east London on British Rail lines into London Bridge; and the east and north-east on lines into Liverpool Street and Fenchurch Street via Stratford and West Ham.
As well as supporting the rapid growth in docklands, the new line will also significantly improve accessibility in areas poorly served by public transport south of the Thames, and in the east end in Tower hamlets, Newham and Greenwich. It will satisfy a necessary precondition for the timely and effective regeneration of the Greenwich peninsula. The Government believe that the development of the Greenwich peninsula—primarily for housing—is of considerable strategic importance, as it will help both to ensure the balanced development of east Thames-side and to prevent avoidable use of green belt land to meet forecast housing needs in London as a whole.
In addition to the Jubilee line extension, we have recently approved the deposit of a private Bill to allow the private sector to extend the docklands light railway to Greenwich and Lewisham and thus provide another much-needed river crossing and allow regeneration to spread to Greenwich and Lewisham.
The Government have therefore presided over an unprecedented expansion of public transport into south-east London. Of course I appreciate my hon. Friend's particular concerns on behalf of his constituents in Thamesmead, and I therefore realise that he would like me to go further. The east London rail study included an evaluation of a further extension of the Jubilee line through the royal docks to Woolwich and possibly 714 Thamesmead. It concluded, however, that this would not, at the present time—I stress that—be justified, as the additional costs substantially exceeded benefits.
However, mindful of our experience that success builds on success, we have ensured that such a further extension of the line is not ruled out. Accordingly, an underground junction will be incorporated into the Jubilee line extension, south of Canning Town, to safeguard the possibility of a future extension to Woolwich and Thamesmead without disrupting the existing railway. Furthermore, the London Docklands development corporation and London Transport are currently embarking on a further study into the ways of improving transport into the royal docks and beyond. I am sure that my hon. Friend will therefore appreciate that his concerns have not only been recognised but anticipated.
Finally, my hon. Friend raised the question of rail services to his constituency. If I do not have enough time to answer my hon. Friend, I shall write to him. I said earlier that it was no part of our policy to encourage car commuting to central London. That is why the Government are supporting record levels of investment in Network SouthEast, as well as in London Transport. Network SouthEast plans to invest £1.3 billion over the next three years. That is an increase of 10 per cent. in real terms over the already high level of investment in the past three years. Having said that, I am very much aware that there are problems at times with the rail services which serve south-east London and north Kent. However, I can assure my hon. Friend—
The motion having been made at Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at half past Ten o'clock.