§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. David Davis.]
2.32 pm§ Mr. Roger Moate (Faversham)I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for having specially returned from his other ministerial duties to respond to this Adjournment debate on Kent commuter rail services. He is carrying on the tradition that he established of being immensely concerned about the quality of our rail services in Kent. We are deeply grateful to him for his efforts on our behalf. We should be even more grateful for even more efforts, and that is the point of the debate. However, his efforts are genuinely meant and we are appreciative.
It was my good fortune to obtain the debate, and I naturally wish to concentrate on the issues facing my constituents and the north Kent and coast services. The quality and cost of commuting from Kent to our capital city is a vital concern to every Kent hon. Member and to thousands of our constituents.
I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) will speak in this short debate and will dwell on many of the issues with which we are jointly concerned. Although he and I sometimes have slight differences of opinion about the frequency of trains stopping at Sittingbourne or Faversham on the way to Thanet, we share the same concerns about improving services for long-distance commuters. Thousands of our constituents spend a large portion of their lives on trains, and the quality of their lives is affected quite positively by the punctuality, dependability and comfort of train services. Indeed, often their livelihoods are affected by their ability to get to work on time after a sensible journey.
As further evidence of the widespread concern about this matter, my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson) wished to contribute, but, because short Adjournment debates do not allow sufficient time for many hon. Members to speak, he has asked me to put his views on record. He said:
The Oxted, Edenbridge, Uckfield line is notorious among all who use it for unreliability, lateness and frequently cancelled trains. This is despite continual representations to British Rail by their passengers and by their Members of Parliament. In this case, British Rail management are failing to deliver on the very targets that they have set themselves.There is continued frustration among passengers who face late or cancelled trains. Generally speaking, I do not wish to deliver a major onslaught against British Rail, its management or staff. They have delivered important improvements in productivity and have generally performed their task well in difficult circumstances in recent years. However, it is important to understand the frustrations that face the travelling public even in these autumn months, but the winter months, which give rise to other difficulties, are the time when frustrations mount, complaints are made and British Rail is judged by its customers. One feels ominously that the worst is yet to come if we have a difficult winter. I repeat that I am not here to launch a wholesale attack on British Rail, although, of course, there are shortcomings and failures. My concern is to try to help British Rail through the difficulties that it and my constituents face.Like many others, I was alarmed in August by British Rail's press announcement that we should have to face some cuts in off-peak services and some deferred capital 613 expenditure because of a shortfall in revenue due to the recession. I understand that the deferment included some slippage in the planned programme for new Networker express trains. That announcement was bad enough in itself and prompted today's debate, but the latest announcement of fare increases has caused even more anger and has rubbed salt in the wound in no uncertain way. We feel strongly that we are now faced with higher fares without any promise of the higher quality service that we were expecting and without any assurance of a continuous investment programme ahead. On top of that, the beginning of the channel tunnel rail service in 1993 as scheduled or, allowing for slippage, at the very latest in 1994, will impose tremendous strains on the existing capacity of our Kent main line. That is probably only two or a maximum of three years ahead.
This is a critical time for our railway systems. We must make some fundamental long-term decisions, but just at the moment when we should be making those long-term decisions, we seem to be slipping back as a result of short-term considerations arising from a drop in revenue due to the recession.
As I see it, the main issue facing our Kent coast service is the new Networker express train, the Networker 471. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will tell us about the £700 million—an enormous sum—that is to be spent on the renewal of the Kent link services, including the Networker 465 trains. I plead with him, however, to make it clear to everyone that the Networker express services, about which I and others are talking, are totally different from the north Kent Networker 465 trains. The confusion of name sometimes makes people feel that we on the Kent coast already have our new trains. That is not the case. Not only have our new trains not yet been ordered, but there is no prospect of that. At this stage, we have no guarantee about their order date, yet those trains are vital to the future of the Kent longer distance services.
Earlier this year, my hon. Friend the Minister and many hon. Members representing Kent constituencies saw a mock-up of the proposed new trains. We all hoped then that the new trains would have been ordered by now. Even so, it would have still been a couple of years before the first of those new trains started to come off the production lines. The order has not been placed and I should like to hear from my hon. Friend the Minister today or in the very near future that those trains will rapidly be ordered, produced and delivered.
The present old rolling stock is more than 30 years old and urgently needs replacing. The new stock is not only more comfortable, safer and faster but, crucially, will increase capacity on the network by almost 50 per cent. The present trains have a maximum capacity of 666 passengers, the new ones have a capacity of 900 passengers. Creating a 50 per cent. increase in capacity is almost like building a new railway. If we do not order new trains now, we shall soon hit a major crisis in capacity.
This year there has been a fall in passenger traffic due to the recession, with about a 6 per cent. drop in peak hour demand, but the signs are that growth will resume in the coming year and we could soon face problems of serious overcrowding. The channel tunnel, which is due to open in 1993 or 1994 will generate new demands on the system. It is expected that the new international passenger trains will reach their capacity constraints at peak times in the first year of the channel tunnel's operation. Quite simply, unless the new Networker express trains with their extra 614 capacity are introduced, there will be serious trouble by about 1994. Even with the new trains, British Rail expects that saturation level will be reached by 1998. That illustrates the importance of ensuring that there is no serious slippage on the new high-speed rail links. At the very least, the new Networker trains must be put in service as a matter of urgency.
British Rail states that, following the August cuts, the class 471 scheme is now being planned for 1995. I believe that with some effort and initiative those new trains could start coming off the production line in 1993. British Rail has asked me to stress that all safety schemes will be totally protected from any of the cuts, and it is right to put that on record. Other Kent Members and I do not want to see further essential investment squeezed out by short-term problems.
The issue of fares is of serious concern to my constituents. I welcome the apparent intervention of the Prime Minister and the philosophy of the citizens charter. If that means that passengers should pay higher fares only for better services and trains, that will be welcomed by the travelling public. We on the north Kent lines face fare increases of 8 per cent.—twice the level of inflation—without better services and without the promise of the new trains that we so badly need. I do not understand why fares on our north Kent and Kent coast lines should not have been held back to the inflation level until a new investment programme was promised.
I recognise the financial difficulties facing Network SouthEast at present, but we should give more support to British Rail to sustain the investment programme through the recession. I am proud that the Government are investing record sums in our rail system which are far higher than the amounts invested by Labour Governments. I welcome the £350 million which is being invested in Network SouthEast this year, but it is clearly not enough and we must find new sources of finance for our railway system. That is the great challenge ahead of us.
In the meantime, my message to the Government is this. First, this year we should increase the public service obligation grant to help British Rail through the recession. Secondly, British Rail should modify its fare increases on unmodernised lines. Thirdly, we should order the new Networker express trains now. I hope that today, or very soon, my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to offer some help to the hard-pressed commuters of Kent.
§ Mr. Roger Gale (Thanet, North)I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) on securing this debate on an issue of crucial importance to all those who live near to and are compelled to use the north Kent line. I thank him and my hon. Friend the Minister of State, who has—as my hon. Friend said—been extremely supportive, for allowing me to contribute briefly to the debate. I endorse almost every word of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham. The only reason why I say "almost" is that I am not so charitable towards British Rail management as he customarily is.
This morning I travelled by train. As I got out at Victoria station, a constituent came up to me and said that he was pleased to see his Member of Parliament suffering the same privations as his constituents. He went on to say that as the train was on time this morning, British Rail must have known that I was travelling. The train was 615 indeed on time and the interior was clean, but the exterior was filthy. The staff were friendly and extremely helpful. I should like to put that on the record, but is it not extraordinary that one comments on it because it is the exception rather than the rule?
My hon. Friend the Minister took the trouble to come and see for himself the miseries that commuters on the north Kent line suffer, so he will understand only too well why earlier this week my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor), who does not characteristically admit to being second in anything, acknowledged that the Southend line was the second worst line in Network SouthEast. The north Kent line is undoubtedly the worst. For the privilege of travelling on trains that are slower than they were in the 1920s, frequently dirty, far too frequently late, and always uncomfortable, my constituents are being asked to pay hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of pounds a year, just to travel to work. There is no question in the mind of anyone compelled to use the line but that British Rail, far from imposing a fare increase on those passengers, should reduce their fares until it can deliver a service which is at least reliable.
In a recent response to one of many letters that I have written to BR, the south eastern director claimed that 75 to 85 per cent. of the commuter trains on the line arrive according to schedule "when they run". The last phrase is significant, and commuters would certainly quarrel with that account of train punctuality.
Are things improving? On the contrary, the management's response to falling passenger revenue appears to be to raise fares and cut services. The south eastern director says that the planning and marketing manager had "a successful meeting" with the Transport Users Consultative Committee earlier in the summer to discuss new timetables. In a letter to me, the secretary to the TUCC, John Cherry, said:
The Committee had anticipated that Network SouthEast would hold consultation over the proposed alterations and possibly defer any action until the start of the Winter time table. Regrettably this was not the case.In a later paragraph he said:I regret that NSE made it very clear that 'business' objectives have the over-riding priority whilst customer service is in second place. It has even been stressed that achieving the required quality of service targets—punctuality, overcrowding levels etc—will be taking a back seat in relation to saving costs.In the private sector, a service industry which did not provide service would be out of business and its management out of jobs. It is small wonder that passenger revenue is declining.When one contrasts BR's "successful meeting" with the TUCC's impression of
no opportunity to offer a constructive response to these proposals",it becomes clear why commuters who use Cannon Street station were told in the summer of improvements that would disrupt services for eight weeks, which was then extended to 12 weeks and which in a recent notice to passengers was extended indefinitely. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham referred to the effect of that on employment. Some firms in the City of London will not employ potential employees who use Cannon Street because their timekeeping is known to be unreliable. Yet those passengers face a further inflationary fare increase. I 616 urge my hon. Friend the Minister to intervene. The fare increase must be scrapped until a reasonable service is available. If investment in British Rail is a question of priorities, I must insist that the worst line in Network SouthEast be the top priority. We need new signalling, new track, new rolling stock and a new approach to management which puts service first. And we need it not when we can piggyback on the channel tunnel rail service in 10 or 15 years' time but now. We need to start that programme of renewal today.
§ The Minister for Public Transport (Mr. Roger Freeman)I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) in particular, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale), on raising this important subject. They have been at the forefront of a legitimate campaign to bring to their constituents improvements in the quality of British Rail services. I share their desire, as does British Rail, to have better rail services along the Kent coast.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, North for having the fairness of mind to report that his journey on the train today was on time. I have just returned to Euston from Birmingham and my train was on time. I am sure that when I catch the 4 o'clock train to my constituency it will also depart on time. We do not congratulate British Rail enough when it performs well. We inevitably focus on the occasions when the service falls down. I place on record my congratulations to InterCity on the service that I enjoyed this morning. It did an excellent job and provided a courteous service, the trains were clean and they ran precisely to time.
My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham raised three issues relating to fares, the PSO grant and the timetable for ordering equipment. It is the Government's intention—in line with the general principles of the citizens charter—not only that the conditions of carriage should be reformed, which is in hand, but that a fare compensation scheme should be introduced which is workable and equitable. The Government also welcome British Rail's policy to seek to distinguish in the rate of fare increase between the different lines by the quality of the service offered, not anticipated.
I am sure that British Rail would be the first to say that the precise fare proposals placed before passengers for implementation in early January did not fully meet the wishes of all Members of the House in terms of differentiating between the lines. An excellent start has been made by distinguishing between the London, Tilbury and Southend line and other lines which, rather like the Kent coastal service, have received an average fare increase and those lines, particularly running north of London, including the Northampton line to my constituency, where services have demonstrably improved.
We no longer have debates about the quality of services on the Northampton line and I dare say that when the turbo trains are fully introduced on the Chiltern line we will no longer have any questions about the quality of service there. A slightly higher fare increase than 7.9 per cent. has applied to those lines.
I accept what my hon. Friends have said, however, and when it comes to the next round of fare increases, greater consideration should, if possible, be given to a greater 617 differentiation between lines. I shall certainly convey that message to British Rail as it is a fair point and in accordance with the spirit of the citizens charter.
On the PSO grant, British Rail's investment programme is running at £1,000 million per annum. Despite the recession, the programme for this year and next year will be delivered. However, the recession has had a dramatic effect on the finances of British Rail and has had even since I visited the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, North several months ago.
The recession has had a dramatic effect in terms of a fall in revenues, lost receipts from property sales and property developments such as at Liverpool Street station. In the past two years such property developments have been difficult to repeat. As the recession ends and the economy grows again, the effects of that recession will reverse. However, in the middle of the financial year 1990–91, which ended six months ago, the public sector, the Treasury, had to find extra resources for British Rail. That meant that about £416 million extra—a higher external financing limit—had to be allowed for British Rail for that year.
In the middle of the financial year 1991–92, exceptionally, my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State and I had to go back to the Treasury and obtain from it an extra £400 million of taxpayers' resources simply to keep British Rail at a standstill.
Those are exceptional sums in the middle of the year. We are in the midst of a process of refixing the expenditure of British Rail for the next financial year, 1992–93 and the succeeding two years and we are faced with much the same pressures. Those pressures are exceptional.
My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham spoke of the PSO grant. That was £500 million in 1989–90; it went up to £600 million in 1990–91; and for 1992–93 I forecast the outturn at close to £800 million. So the PSO grant—that is, the revenue subsidy provided in cash by the Government to British Rail by the way of grant to permit it to run Network SouthEast and Regional Railways—is rising substantially.
I labour that point because it is the background against which we must make sure that British Rail maintains its investment programme and adds the projects to which my hon. Friends referred. We cannot avoid talking about the Kent link services; those Networkers do not serve the constituencies of my hon. Friends, but the programme is costing £700 million to provide upwards of 800 new coaches and the lengthening of platforms—work that is largely complete—to serve 12-coach trains. It is important that that programme is completed before attention is turned to the Kent coastal services to bring relief to the congestion that arises from shorter trains. Once we reach the stage at which British Rail can run 12-car trains, congestion will be relieved for commuters coming in from Sevenoaks and Dartford, although that is still a few years off. Once that programme has been completed, attention can be turned to the Kent coastal services.
618 To break the production of that new rolling stock and insert trains—for example, the 471s—for the Kent coastal services would not be good value for money. The manufacturers, GEC and BREL in the case of the Networkers, would have to retool the production line because the 471s are slightly different trains. Having broken the production line, they would have to start again by retooling so as to finish the inner Kent Networker services and that would be costly.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham rightly said, no one has suggested that it is a question of anything other than when the trains will be delivered. There is no question whether they are needed. I acknowledge that the service is inadequate. The figures for 1991–92 show that for the Kent coastal services, so far this year punctuality at the morning peak is 90.7 per cent., slightly better than last year when it was 86.4 per cent., but for the afternoon and evening peak it is still poor; 83.8 per cent. of trains arrive within five minutes of their scheduled arrival times against a target that we have set the Kent coast lines of 88 per cent. Service provision—that is, whether the train runs—is adequate, but the cleaning, exterior and interior, is not adequate, although the exterior cleaning situation has had more to do with the water shortage than with the policy of British Rail.
In terms of congestion factors, the figures show clearly that the service is inadequate. The degree of congestion on the trains is unacceptable. So it is not a question whether British Rail will replace the rolling stock but when. I cannot hold out any hope at this stage of advancing the date of 1995, four years hence, for the new services to start running and that includes the two-year manufacturing period. The cost will be over £0.5 billion. Undoubtedly the trains will provide a quicker, more reliable, more comfortable and less congested service.
I am anxious to be helpful and perhaps more hopeful than my remarks so far imply. As and when the economy recovers—if it recovers faster than, prudently, British Rail expects—it may be possible to advance that investment programme. I give my hon. Friends that assurance. Perhaps private sector finance can come into British Rail—for example, in freight. Every £1 million of private sector finance that is attracted between now and 1995 for a discrete freight service on lines that run into a single terminal will help to release other resources that are needed for valuable schemes such as the 471s.
I join my hon. Friends in hoping very much that the service on this line will improve, but I assure them that in our discussions with the Treasury and British Rail my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State and I will do all that we can within reason—we cannot print money—to advance the date from 1995 to provide what is badly needed on the Kent coast lines: new signalling and new rolling stock.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at Three o'clock.