HL Deb 19 June 1963 vol 250 cc1337-66

5.48 p.m.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the narrow scope of any hearing before a transport users' consultative committee, when the closure of a railway station or line is proposed, the Minister of Transport will use his powers under Section 90 of the Transport Act, 1962, to give full opportunities to members of the public to object to such a closure at a public inquiry. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I must now direct the attention of your Lordships to a quite different subject from that which has been discussed in the Motion moved by the noble Baroness opposite. What I wish to do this afternoon is to raise a point—and it is a quite narrow point—on the procedure which occurs at a hearing before a transport users' consultative committee. I would emphasise at the outset that it is not intended by me that this discussion should relate in any way to the closure of any specific line or station, but is simply a matter of the procedure which will be adopted at these hearings. Nevertheless, I believe it to be a matter of some importance; because if Dr. Beeching's Report is to be carried out at all, or in full, there are bound to be a fairly large number of these hearings, beginning perhaps comparatively soon, and I believe that the public will become aware of the shortcomings, in my view, of the procedure as it now is.

The transport users' consultative committees originated under the Transport Act, 1947, and they were set up at that time in order to give the members of the public some redress as against the nationalised industry which came into operation under that Act. To use the consultative committees' own words: They were created so that the users of transport should have some means of criticising the Commission and making suggestions for improvement. They were set up to represent transport users of all kinds and to convey their views to the Minister and the Transport Commission. Later on, they say that the Chairman and members are there to see that the users of transport get the best deal that is consistent with the national interest. And this, I think, sets the pattern for what they have been doing since. In practice, they have done two things. One was to investigate complaints and suggestions about services that are provided, or ought to be provided, by the railways; and the second was to deal with objections to proposed closures.

It is interesting to compare the old handbook published about these functions with the new one which has come into existence, after the passing of the Transport Act of last year. Originally, the consultative committees said (and they emphasised this) that persons attending their meetings were not taking part in an arbitration and were sitting essentially as a consultative meeting for consultation as the representatives of transport users. They go on to explain that a considerable part of the material before them is in writing, and that normally it is only that part of the Commission's case with which an objector disagrees that will be discussed across the table. They then say that members of the public at large, unless they had formally established their right to make representations and had received the relevant documents, would not, if they attended a hearing, fully appreciate what was going on. Thus the emphasis was, first of all, that people should attend the committee's meetings—most of which concerned closures—only when making formal objections and after a proper study of the documents. And certainly I read in this paragraph of the old book an underlying principle that objectors who came to the hearing on the occasion of a closure, would have a fairly good synopsis of the British Transport Commission's case before them which they could then all discuss—in, it is true, an informal way around a table. But, of course, the consultative committees emphasised that they were not arbitration boards or legal tribunals, and were not meant to be; and they said, indeed, that if counsel or solicitors turned up they were treated simply as spokesmen, and were not there to do fierce cross-examination or display their forensic skill.

However, although the powers in the Transport Act, 1947, were very wide, restrictions were, in due course, placed upon the scope of the hearing before the consultative committees. I will give your Lordships, in a minute, examples of one of these under the old Act. In due course, last year, your Lordships and another place were discussing the Transport Act, 1962, and in this Act the scope of the hearings in front of the transport users' consultative committees was cut down. Instead of the general power they had before, to look into all these matters, they were now allowed to do only one thing—and I quote from Section 56(9) of that Act: A committee with whom an objection has been lodged…shall consider the objection and any representations made by the Board concerned "— that is, as a rule, the Railways Board— and report to the Minister as soon as possible on the hardship, if any, which they consider will be caused by the proposed closure, and the report may contain proposals for alleviating that hardship. My noble friend Lord Chesham, when he moved the Second Reading of what is now the 1962 Act, drew attention to the fact that this change had taken place and that, instead of having the wide powers they apparently had previously, the committees were now allowed to deal only with hardship. He said (col. 113 of the OFFICIAL REPORT Of May 8 last year): …the area committee will, in future, report direct to the Minister any degree of hardship which they see arising out of proposals for complete withdrawal of railway passenger services and they can make suggestions to meet it. The result of that will be to speed up the procedure and to place the responsibility on the Minister for deciding whether the passenger services in question should be closed down or not. That is, in any case, the Minister's function under the Bill, but I am bound to say that it appears, from what my noble friend said, that the intention of the Government, when introducing this restriction in the Bill last year, was to cut down very considerably upon the area with which the transport users' consultative committees would deal; and if this is the case, I am very sorry. Certainly the committees have so interpreted it.

I should like now to compare what I have just said with the new handbook which the committees have produced. They now say that the committee's reports to the Minister will be concerned only with the hardship, if any, involved by the proposed closure in the light of the alternative services available or proposed, and with what they think should be done to alleviate such a hardship. Even although the committees and the objectors may have before them the statement of the losses or savings, the assessment of this is entirely a matter for the Railways Board, in the first place, and for the Minister, when he decides whether or not he will consent to the closure. There will, therefore, be no point in future in objectors coming to consultative committees and seeking to question these figures.

They then go on to say that There is nothing in the Act to specify the grounds on which the objections should be made, but as there is now only one ground on which the committee may make a report to the Minister, any objection should be addressed to the hardship, which, in the objectors' view, would result from the proposed closure, and to proposals for alleviating it. Later they say that "Heads of Information" will be sent to an objector who wishes to appear at one of these hearings setting out the details of the facts to enable him to develop his case before the committee. In an Appendix to the handbook there are set out specimen Heads of Information which noble Lords may see, and they appear to be a summary of various figures which are no doubt produced by the Boards themselves. And your Lordships will remember that it is not now possible to make representations at all on these matters. In another part of the handbook they say: If objectors, or deputations of objectors, like to bring lawyers with them, these lawyers will be treated simply as spokesmen for the purpose of putting their case concisely, and not as pleaders with the right to cross-examine. …Questions may be put…but this is in no sense to be a cross-examination. It cannot be made too clear that persons attending a meeting of a consultative committee are not taking part in an arbitration, and that the consultative committee is not a tribunal. It is, in effect, a committee discussing matters on a round-table basis with the people making representations, and making a report after hearing their views. The committee may ask the Board to comment on such points as the objectors make, but there is to be "a minimum of formality". I think I have sufficiently described to your Lordships the sort of hearing which the transport users' consultative committees have themselves decided that they should hold under Section 56 of the Transport Act, 1962, and it seems to me that it compares very badly with the sort of administrative process with which the citizens of this country are now familiar.

Your Lordships will recall that since the last war there has grown up a very remarkable phenomenon in the constitutional law of this country, consisting of public inquiries leading to reports to a Minister which he may then have to decide on as a matter of policy, quite apart from the actual facts or the merits of the case. This is the system that has grown up. I know it well in the field of town planning and compensation, but there are many aspects of it, and it is, on the whole, one which is now widely accepted by members of the public as fair. But it is so accepted just because of this fact: although the decision, in the end, is to be taken by the Minister, under powers granted to him by Act of Parliament, on probably a matter of pure policy, nevertheless, before he gives that decision he sends dawn to the locality an inspector of his choice who will hold a public inquiry at which the people concerned in the matter may appear. They may make any representations they like, may cross-examine, may produce their own expert witnesses and generally give the thing a very good combing out in front of the inspector.

The inspector then makes a factual report, not an anything to do with policy but upon the merits of the case he has heard argued before him; and he puts this report in front of the Minister, and in due course also in front of the people who were present and made representations at the inquiry, if they want it. Thereafter, after that has been done and justice has been fulfilled, and I think very successfully fulfilled, so far as it can possibly be done, it may be that the inspector has to be overruled on policy grounds by the Minister. This does not happen by any means in all cases, and I think that in the planning world the inspector's recommendation is usually upheld.

Your Lordships may say most of these public inquiries about which I am talking relate to the interference with, or the deprivation of, the personal rights of an individual; they refer to whether he can use his land for something which he wants to do or whether he is to have his land expropriated for the national good, and that therefore this sort of inquiry is not really a proper analogy for the situation in which a member of the public is having one part of his public transport services taken away from him. I do not think this is really so, because it is not only in the compensation or the planning cases where public inquiries now take place. If we consider the case of the Boundary Commission that is now going on, major and very lengthy public inquiries have been taking place up and down the country, at which the citizen is chiefly represented, it is true, by his local authority, but where the issue is not the individual rights of any one member of the public but the proper administration and the proper way of running affairs in the locality; and I think perhaps the public inquiry idea is sufficiently widespread even at the present time to comprehend the sort of situation where the railways, which after all belong to all of us, are going to be in some part closed or interfered with.

Further than that—and this is a point of which I have not previously informed my noble friend, and consequently I do not suppose he knows about the very obscure Act—the idea of public inquiries relating to the closure of things such as railway lines is an age-old one, so far as I can make out. There was certainly considerable power in the case of light railways, but here I find in Section 35 of the Tramways Act, 1870, that if at any time after any tramway has been opened for three years to the public it shall be represented in writing to the Board of Trade by the local authority of such district or by 20 inhabitant ratepayers of such district…that the public are deprived of the full benefit of the tramway, the Board of Trade may (if they consider that…the case is one for inquiry) direct inquiry…into the truth of the representation. And after that the Board may grant licences for somebody else to put trams on the tramway and see that the public get a proper deal.

It is very interesting to see that even in 1870 there were these powers of the referee to hold an inquiry. He was sent by the Board of Trade, gave proper notice of the time and place of his inquiry. He could summon witnesses and put them on oath on pain of perjury if a witness gave false evidence, and finally give a report in writing. And this is the interesting thing. He was to deliver copies of it to all or any of the parties at the inquiry. That seems to me the most up-to-date of all possible forms of inquiry. It was introduced as early as 1870. I cannot believe the sort of case I have in mind is at all without precedent or should be a surprising matter for the Ministry of Transport to contemplate.

It will not be surprising, I think, with the explanation I have given of what will happen in front of these committees, that there will be criticism that people are not going to have their say. I have an example of one such criticism which has recently come into my hands from a very responsible body in the North of England. They say that the sort of criticism they have of these Boards is, first of all—and I may say this is not necessarily my view; this is what the public are going to say—that representatives of the Railway Boards are given unduly privileged positions. I think this means two things: one, that they are allowed to put in their reports without being cross-examined, and there has also been some question of their supplying the secretariat of the Board and thereby perhaps producing undue influence.

Secondly, this reputable body say, the objectors get no chance to examine the Board's representatives on their figures. And this, I may say, is to some degree a very important matter, because I also have a copy of a publication called the Economic Journal, edited by Sir Roy Harrod and other eminent people. Again I do not know whether this is true or not, but it is certainly a view that some eminent economists hold. It says: There has been major disagreement between British Railways and the consultative committees over the choice of the time period upon which estimates should be based. The agreed scheme "— that is, of figures which is put before these committees— represents a compromise between the long-run views of British Railways and the short-run views of the C.T.C.C. If there is some question even on the basis of the figures themselves, it seems to me very strange that there should be no opportunity for members of the public to cross-examine. Thirdly, the criticism goes, the chairman is apt to curtail the time available to objectors to develop their arguments. I do not know, but it would be lamentable if this were so. Finally, they say, no steps are taken to see that objectors' documents are examined by members of the committee. These are not my criticisms; I do not necessarily subscribe to them. But I think it is deplorable that there should be a system where there is the possibility of this sort of criticism being made. And this is the thing I object to.

I read recently in a newspaper called the Hunts. Post of April 16, 1959, of the procedure which took place before the East Anglian transport users' consultative committee on April 14 that year—this was before the restriction was put into the 1962 Act—referring to the proposed closure of the St. Ives-Kettering railway. A certain gentleman protested that there was nowhere a clear statement about the figures that the Board were putting forward. The deputy chairman of the committee said: We have as a committee. These figures are presented in a way laid down by agreement between the Central Consultative Committee and the British Transport Commission and approved by the Minister. He went on: We have the information, which cannot necessarily be made public. You can ask me what you want. I started by saying it is not for you to be satisfied, it is for us to be satisfied. Then the objector said: Why do British Railways publish the book? That is the heads of their case to which I have referred. The deputy-chairman replied: Firstly for our information and secondly for other people interested. You are not here at a public inquiry…. You do not really appreciate what this meeting is. I am not prepared to carry on with any argument about figures, because we are—many of the committee—skilled in accountancy, and we will be satisfied the figures are correct. We will have access to the sources which we require. I cannot permit you to go on when we are under no obligation to prove that the arithmetic is right. The objector said: I am remarking that in the statement available to us, there is nowhere a statement of the present receipts and costs and therefore no statement of the present loss. Therefore we do not know whether there is a loss or not. The deputy-chairman replied: You must leave that to us. I do not think you are going to get anywhere by harping on that point. If you will not accept my assurance that we will see the figures are correct, I am sorry, but I do not see that there is any point in you continuing. I do not know whether or not that is accurate, but it seems to me to be an unfortunate state of affairs when that type of thing happens in front of these committees. I must admit that on that occasion the Huntingdon County Council were able to put forward seven objections to the closure of this railway line, and I think that only one of them at that time related to hardship. Yet that is the only ground they could put forward today: the other six would not be suitable.

What is to be done about this state of affairs? I have one suggestion which I have put into the text of my Question to my noble friend—namely, that the Minister should use his powers under Section 90 of the 1962 Act to hold proper public inquiries—because it is quite clear that these committee hearings are not full public inquiries. Section 90 says: The Minister may hold inquiries for the purposes of his powers under this Act as if those purposes were purposes of the Ministry of Transport Act, 1919, and section twenty of that Act shall apply accordingly. I do not think that provision is as obscure as it sounds, because the reference to the 1919 Act is simply a matter of machinery for giving the inspector power to require witnesses to attend the inquiry. I have no doubt in my own mind (although I shall be most interested to hear what my noble friend Lord Chesham says) that the Minister could hold a public inquiry under this section. Because one of his powers—indeed one of his duties—under the 1962 Act is to consent to each and every proposed closure of a railway line and station, and sometimes to impose conditions before anything can happen at all. Therefore, he seems not to be in any legal difficulty, although, as I say, I am interested to hear what my noble friend says about that. I hope that he will tell me that I am right because it seems to me that this is the only way in which people who are affected by this sort of closure can be satisfied that their case has been properly heard and properly reported to the Minister.

The only alternative arises out of something that I saw in The Times of April 11. This was not a verbatim report, but a synopsis of the Annual Report of the Wales and Monmouth Transport Users' Consultative Committee. They, of course, operate in an area which is threatened with severe closures by Dr. Beeching's proposals, and they recognise that they can deal only with the hardship side of it. Nevertheless, they have taken a wide view of what is meant by "hardship". For instance, they say that they consider that it will be hardship if anything is proposed which will increase the cost to anybody of carrying out his trade or profession; or anything that will affect the health of train-users and their dependants; or anything that will affect their standard of living, such as denying them access to a shopping centre of reasonable size. They then go on to say that the cost of the saving arising from the proposed closures is, of course, quite relevant, but that it is chiefly relevant to their duty to see that hardship is, if possible, alleviated. They say that hardship can almost always be alleviated or ameliorated at a cost; but they also say that if the cost is as high as, or exceeds, the saving, then they think that this would be a ground for disagreeing altogether with the proposed closure. That, as I understand it, is what they say. If that is so, this must bring in the question of costs, and the question of all the figures that the British Railways Board are to put forward.

My noble friend Lord Chesham said in the Second Reading debate on the 1962 Act that he thought it would be a good thing if, without laying down a hard-and-fast rule, there were some sort of uniformity of scope for a hearing in front of these committees. So I hope that he will be able to say either that he and his right honourable friend have already made up their minds, or are going to think hard about this; and whether or not they are going to allow transport users' consultative committees (if he will not hold local inquiries) at any rate to interpret their terms of hardship in a wide way, so that they can let in almost as much as would be possible at a public inquiry. I recognise that it will be necessary to keep these matters within bounds to see that the proceedings are not interminably long. Nevertheless, I hope that this term "hardship" will be interpreted as generously as possible, and that Her Majesty's Government will give a lead in this respect.

Finally, I want to ask one other thing. As I said in regard to the St. Ives-Kettering case, the Huntingdon County Council put forward many objections on all sorts of grounds, including those concerning educational facilities—getting their children to schools, and that sort of thing. County councils are bound to have a large stake in the future of some of the railway lines concerned; and so, of course, will other local authorities, such as county district councils. At the moment I do not know whether the point about hardship applies to them. But what are they to do about the cost of transporting their children to school? What are they to do if new projects are mooted in regard to bringing industry into their area which at the present moment is being served by a railway line, if the Board propose to close the line?

How are they to get this sort of thing in front of the Minister? So far as I can see, they cannot go to the consultative committee. Surely it is essential that they should be able to put forward their proposals, and perhaps further-reaching proposals than that. Perhaps they want to suggest reforms in regard to the way the railway is working, or something of that nature. Indeed, I consider it vital that they should be able to do so. Perhaps my noble friend can tell me a little about that.

No doubt railway closures will have to take place. I am not suggesting for one moment that they should not. Nor am I suggesting that in any specific case they should not. What concerns me is that the proper procedure should be laid down, so that when the decision of the Minister is announced, members of the public should not feel aggrieved that their case has not been completely and fully heard and considered, and digested by the Minister before he makes his decision. I beg to ask the Question in my name.

6.17 p.m.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, I am quite sure that your Lordships will agree that the noble Viscount has contributed a public service of considerable importance in raising this matter, and I would feel that to him are due not only our thanks but our congratulations for the manner in which he has made his points. In my view, he has proved the case that there cannot possibly be the right kind of inquiry under the new set-up of the transport users' consultative committees, and that it is only if there is a properly constituted public inquiry at which all the relevant factors can be considered that justice at least can be seen to be done.

The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, is aware that I am Chairman of the National Council on Inland Transport. We are in touch with literally hundreds of local authorities, and I can assure the noble Lord that all over the country they regard the present set-up as deplorably unjust. I am also aware that members of the public in large numbers in the areas likely to be affected feel strongly about these matters, now that realisation is coming to them. In the areas affected they are reading things in their local Press such as this item which appeared last week: At the first meeting of the reconstituted transport users' consultative committee for the South-Western Area…. the chairman, Major-General W. E. V. Abraham, emphasised that the committee was no longer empowered to make any recommendation as to whether or not a railway line should be closed. The committee's only function now is to assess what hardships would be caused if a particular line or station is closed, and how this hardship could be alleviated. He hoped that objectors would appreciate this and address protests against proposed closures on grounds other than passenger hardship, not to the committee, but direct to the Minister of Transport. The committee was most anxious to investigate thoroughly and suggest alleviation of genuine hardship. The noble Viscount quoted from the old Transport Consultative Committees' handbook, which said that they were set up to ensure that transport users get the best deal that is consistent with the national interest. I am quite sure that is what all of us want, including the Minister and certainly the noble Lord. But I am bound to say—and I feel the noble Viscount proved his case—that unless the suggestion he has made is accepted, then certainly very few people will believe that they are getting the best deal consistent with the national interest.

It is obvious that unless this change is made only relatively unimportant matters will be threshed out in public. To say that they will be threshed out in public is probably an exaggeration because the amount of discussion which will take place is obviously limited, as the noble Viscount has made clear. That means that all, or almost all, of the major questions and considerations will be considered, as I see it, in secret and decided by the Minister without apparent opportunity for discussion by the people mainly concerned. That seems to me as unsatisfactory and as undemocratic as the procedure of the Star Chamber.

The noble Lord a few days ago sent a letter to the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, who was kind enough to let me see a copy of it. In that letter the noble Lord said that there was no reason why even now local authorities should not be preparing cases on hardship for submission to transport users' consultative committees, and on all other matters acting now in preparing cases or reports for submission to the Minister, with copies to all other Government Departments normally concerned with the subjects touched upon. Just consider that kind of set-up. Here we have a local inquiry under a T.U.C.C. dealing just with the narrow issue of hardship. Then on all other matters local authorities are invited to write to the Ministry of Transport with copies to other Government Departments on particular issues.

On May 1, in the debate on transport, the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, gave us some of these considerations on which local authorities and others are now invited to write to the Minister of Transport and to other Ministers—namely social; defence; industrial development; distribution of industry and employment; the effect on areas of high and low employment; on population movements; road considerations; planning future towns and conurbations; the cost of alternative transport. That is a most important and far-reaching list.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

And education, of course.

LORD STONHAM

Yes. The noble Lord said, of course, at the time that that was by no means a comprehensive list. So it will be little or no exaggeration to say that local authorities are not merely being invited, but are positively being incited, to get in touch with Government Departments after long inquiry and at great expense.

The noble Lord also added in that speech [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 249 (No. 76), col. 200]: There is a great deal of thought and consultation before us, and many and various are the interests which must be consulted or considered before a great many of the proposals can be carried into effect. I quite agree with that, and he will recall that the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, Lord Hailsham, on the next day said that, in his view, there was no hurry about this matter and that it might take as long as seven years. But the noble Lord will be aware that all over the country closure proposals have now just been published, and the British Railways Board has said that in various parts of the country, including Scotland, the railways will be closed on September 8 or 9 or 15—only 10 or 11 weeks from now. Whereas under the 1962 Act those proposals have to be published for two weeks, then six more weeks must elapse for objections to be lodged before the T.U.C.C. can sit. This means that they cannot possibly send a representation to the Minister, even on the narrow ground of hardship, until the latter part of August.

The Minister is supposed to consider all these things and to give a decision before September 8 or 9. The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, shakes his head. I will quote chapter and verse for that if he likes, but I do not want to speak for too long. These are announcements which have been made and this is the position. I am not suggesting for one moment that the Minister is going to arrive at a decision in that short period, but I am bound to inform the noble Lord that these announcements have been made by British Railways. I have one in my hand containing the details—in fact I have many of these, but this is just one in regard to one line, in which they even give the number of redundancies, the number of men in various jobs who will have to be dispensed with if these proposals go through.

I mention this because of a particular point raised by the noble Viscount, namely, that we have to consider public opinion. I am not suggesting that he entirely agrees with what was said at this particular hearing or by the particular local authorities whose views he quoted, but that is what the public thinks; and justice not only has to be done, but has to be seen to be done. When you get an item in a newspaper headlined that a line will close on September 8, with various particulars quoted in detail below it, then that is what the public believe. And when they are told that all this other elaborate machinery has to be gone through before anything is decided, well, they have their doubts. Then if finally the matter is decided affirmatively by the Minister very soon after September 8, or whatever the date may be, they will be sure they have not had a fair deal in the matter and certainly their voice has not been heard.

How can the Minister in a comparatively short space of time positively give full consideration to all these matters, which the noble Lord has said must quite rightly be considered, when there are 300 branch line closures which could be possible and some 2,300 stations involved? I have a list here of ten different branch lines now scheduled for closure in the northern part of Scotland, which is supposed to become effective in September. I know of eight in the West of England already, and there are the large number which was considered before the new set-up, on which there has been an inquiry and on which the consultative committees have sent a report to the Minister, but about which the Minister has as yet made no decision. That, again, is a sapping of confidence.

For example, the Porthcawl line is one which I brought to the notice of the noble Lord. There is another, the Haltwhistle and Alton line. There the local authority was able to establish a disagreement with the figures put forward by the Railways Board, and to prove that the loss which could have been wiped out easily was only some £1,600. This is an area where there is no alternative transport, where it is a thousand feet up, and where it is extremely unlikely that there could be a bus service anyway. The Minister has had that case before him since July, 1962, with a recommendation from the transport users' consultative committee that the line should not he closed. They have had no decision about it, and it is still in the list in the Beeching Plan for closure. They are the kind of things which sap the confidence of the people and, as it was put rather crudely to me, it seems to us that it is a case of heads they win, tails we lose.

Even when the consultative committee announces in our favour, the Minister does not come to a decision. Surely, a public inquiry such as the noble Viscount suggested, with witnesses, a chance for questioning, for testing the alleged figures, is the only fair way, and, indeed, the only practical way, because surely, unless this procedure is adopted—and we are having these cases all over the country—the Ministerial machine must become clogged up.

I would ask the noble Lord to tell us this now. If there is not a public inquiry, such as the noble Viscount has asked for, and if local authorities and others accept the invitation from the Minister to send in their written detailed objections and answers to the Minister or the Ministers, can the noble Lord guarantee that a Minister will discuss these objections and give these people the opportunity to challenge facts and statements made by the Railways Board? I do not wish to go into any questions of detailed cost now, because that is a matter I am going to raise to-morrow. But I do assure the noble Lord now that there is no case which has come to my notice where the figures put forward by the British Railways Board have not proved inaccurate. He will be aware that the line manager of the South-Western Division, Mr. Taylor, agreed only the other week at the Isle of Wight that the figures put forward for the Isle of Wight railways were suspect. So there must be opportunity to challenge these things. When these figures are known in the particular areas, and people are able to look at them and are not satisfied with them, there must be opportunity for all the facts to be brought out.

I quoted what the noble Lord said about consultations. There must be consultations, and I quite agree there should be. If the local authorities ask for consultation with the noble Lord's Department will it be granted as of right, because that is most important? Is he aware also that, although he has said again and again—and I quite know this must be so—that lines cannot be closed down without the consent of the Minister, and the Minister has said that if there is no alternative service he will not give his consent (or words to that effect; I do not want to misquote, but that is near enough), in some of these closures which have now been put forward there is no alternative bus service over a considerable part of the area, no kind of proposals have been put forward for an alternative service, and this is causing very considerable worry?

I think it must be agreed that every responsible organisation representing local authorities has protested in the strongest possible terms against the present set-up, and has expressed its concern at the way in which it appears, so far as we can tell (subject to anything the noble Lord says), this is going to be administered. In particular there is the County Councils Association. The noble Viscount mentioned one county council. This letter, which was sent by the County Councils Association to the Minister of Transport on April 23, is a really remarkable document. I do not know whether the noble Lord has read it, but it deals with matters which are of vital and important concern, and with which all the county councils are concerned. We are not talking now about the tiny organisations or a political organisation. Apart from Parliament, apart from central Government, we are talking about one of the most important associations of government in this country. They say things like this: …the Association are gravely concerned about the Board's intention, expressed in the Report and apparently supported by the Minister, to carry out the proposals for line and station closures and withdrawals of services as quickly as the statutory procedures permit…. The Association ask the Minister to give an assurance that he will not give his consent to any closure proposal until he has given due consideration, not only to the recommendations of the appropriate Transport Users' Consultative Committee on the issue of hardship, but to those other issues to which reference is made below. Then the Association refer to a great many things, including the fact that the alternative service will still provide a reasonable service to the public after the closure. They refer to the financial implications. They want an immediate examination of the type and carrying capacity of the vehicles available "; a survey of the pattern and capacity of the roads which are to take such vehicles; an immediate survey to determine the need for additional car-parking facilities…; the close coordination of road and rail services "; and a great many more things of the utmost importance.

My Lords, I submit that those things cannot possibly be settled with satisfaction, or indeed sufficiently speedily or efficiently, if they all have to be referred to the Ministry of Transport and considered departmentally. Because representations from bodies of this kind cannot possibly be ignored, and I am quite sure that neither the noble Lord nor his right honourable friend would wish to ignore them. But the point is that, even from the viewpoint of machinery, quite apart from what the public think about it and know about it, and quite apart from giving them satisfaction, a great many of these things and their local application could best be considered by the kind of public inquiry which has been suggested by the noble Viscount. He did suggest, perhaps, an amplification of the transport users' consultative committee or their present power. I believe that that would be only a second best. An inquiry with a ministerial representative from the Department in the chair would, of course, be very much better, and would give a great deal more satisfaction.

This question does not concern only the County Councils Association. The Town Planning Institute have put the most serious questions to the Minister. There is the Wales National Conference, and a resolution by the All-Wales Committee—not the T.U.C.C. there—speaks about deep concern and anxiety about the proposed widespread withdrawal and restriction of passenger and freight services, which will result in irreparable damage to the social and economic life of the Principality. Where it is established that a railway line will be of genuine and permanent value to the community, social considerations should prevail and arrangements made to retain the service with necessary economies, notwithstanding that it may not be financially viable. They ask the Government to defer a final decision on the implementation of the Board's representations until a nationwide examination is made of all forms of transport. My Lords, anxiety is felt not only by official bodies of this kind. There are the National Union of Townswomen's Guilds, representing 200,000 women, who, at their conference in Edinburgh, passed a resolution; the Council for the Preservation of Rural England; the Women's Institutes and the Rural District Councils Associations. In fact, it is quite true to say that, in the areas likely to be concerned, this matter is causing more anxiety and worry than any other domestic subject to-day. I earnestly hope, therefore, that the noble Lord, when he comes to reply to his noble friend, will be able either to accept the suggestion or at least to say that the matter will be reconsidered, so that a far truer, better, more thorough and more satisfactory local inquiry will take place, in order that we shall give greater confidence to the public and also be sure that, when a decision is made, it is in the best interests of the people affected.

6.41 p.m.

LORD CHESHAM

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross has posed his Question in the lucid and well-documented way that we have come to expect of him, and certainly, so far as concerns the background to the Question, which he sketched in with some care, I should have no complaint as to the way that he did it; nor should I have the slightest challenge of the various facts that he put forward to us, though it may be that, as my argument develops, there will be a difference between the conclusions drawn in the matter. In view of the importance of the subject which he has raised, which I do not deny at all, I think I ought principally to address myself to what is the substance of the Question as it appears on the Order Paper.

It seems to me that, if I were also to address myself, in the process, to all the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, who has just sat down, I should, first, perhaps be somewhat trespassing on the substance of the two Questions which the noble Lord has down for to-morrow (and I think those matters would be better dealt with in their context then); and, secondly, I might be going a little further away from the original Question than the amount I have to say on that Question would seem to make it wise to do. Therefore, the noble Lord will, I am sure, understand if I do not quite cover all the ground. For instance, there is his assertion, which he has repeated often in this House, that every figure the Railways Board have produced that he has yet had anything to do with has proved to be inaccurate. My Lords, he may well continue to assert it, but I shall say no more at the moment than that that is by no means the experience of many other people. But, my Lords, I will not take that matter up now.

I think I ought to start by looking carefully (and perhaps in a somewhat oversimplified manner, even, to be sure of the matter) at the provisions of the Transport Act which are involved in my noble friend's Question. Section 90, as he said, provides generally for the Minister to hold inquiries for the purposes of his powers under the Act. He also told us, quite correctly, that that was an extension, or a continuation, perhaps I should say, of the powers he originally had under Section 20 of the Transport Act, 1919. The point really is that it is not, in terms, associated directly with any of the particular powers and functions that the Minister has. On the other hand, the provision—and, indeed, it is the only provision—for inquiry in relation to rail closures is subsection (9) of Section 56 of the Transport Act, and that, of course, provides for the consideration of objections to the proposed closures and for a report to the Minister. That is a very different provision from Section 90. As the noble Lord pointed out—and I agree with him—it contains a special, deliberately restricted and well-defined power of inquiry. About that, three points are, I think, especially notable: first, the power of inquiry or of consideration is given to an independent body, the T.U.C.C.; secondly, its scope is confined to proposals for closing passenger services or stations; and, thirdly, within that scope the inquiry is confined to the one aspect of hardship. I am over-simplifying, perhaps, but it is most important to double clarify, if necessary, exactly what is the position of that power.

Now my noble friend, it seems to me, is trying to amend subsection (9) of Section 56 in a most ingenious manner, which would not require a change in the law; and, as he told us, he has sought to do it by invoking the wide general powers of inquiry under Section 90. Those powers, I certainly agree, are very useful in appropriate circumstances. I can see what he is driving at here, and it is something in which the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, supported him, but they must remember that this suggestion that they have put forward follows very soon after Parliament has taken a decision on this very matter. Consider what happened only a year ago. The question of which method should be adopted for considering closure proposals was before Parliament when the Transport Bill was debated. The machinery of examination in Section 56 was what was finally approved. In taking this decision, Parliament deliberately selected certain features for consideration by the T.U.C.C.s from among the number of things which they might have considered. Notably, for the first time, it provided a statutory process by which objections to proposed passenger closures by users or by bodies representing them were required to be heard before the event by the independent T.U.C.C.s, and it confined the main function to an assessment of hardship. So what my noble friend is trying to do, as I see it, is, in effect, to reverse a decision taken at a very recent date by Parliament on the machinery of inquiry which is appropriate to these proposals.

Although the Act makes available the machinery of inquiry under Section 90 in relation to any of the Minister's powers, Section 56 provides this special procedure as to the regular and, indeed, the obligatory machinery of inquiry that is to take place before proposed passenger closures can lawfully happen. I do not think any Government should entertain the proposition that a statutory pattern which has so recently been set by Parliament should be radically altered in the way which my noble friend suggests at this stage, with as yet so little experience of its working. Because I cannot find it easy to agree that the provisions of the Act deny the public the opportunities they should have to object to a closure proposal. Within the scope of the T.U.C.C.s' consideration they have an opportunity which I should have thought would be described as ample. Again, they get public notice of the proposal. There is the six-week period in which to lodge objections; and once a single objection is lodged the case has to be considered by the T.U.C.C., who must then report on the hardship to the Minister. And the closure cannot take place until the Minister has given his consent.

The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, thought—and I say this in good faith—came precariously close to being somewhat misleading to the House when he asked how all these things could happen within the period, which he described as "short", between the notice being given and the date on which a closure was proposed to take place. He gave the impression—perhaps he did not mean to—that because a proposal had been made that something should be closed on September 8 there was some almighty power that dictated that it had to happen on that day and any considerations had to be stuffed into the intervening period. That is not so.

The purpose of the procedure that the T.U.C.C.s follow under Section 56 is that when a closure is opposed the machinery starts; and I do not suppose for a moment that in all cases the considerations will be completed within the period. In the circumstances the closure will not take place until later, if it takes place at all.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, may I interrupt for a moment? I would say that I did not mislead the House at all, nor am I in ignorance of these facts. What I protest about is that British Railways should make the announcement of a closing date when, by the nature of things, as the noble Lord and I are well aware, it is virtually impossible in reason for it to take place on that date. It is quite wrong to create the wrong impression and mislead people in that way.

LORD CHESHAM

My Lords, that is exactly where the noble Lord is coming close to misleading the House; because in no case that I know have the Railways Board announced a closing date. I did not want to bring this point up, particularly because it is better suited for to-morrow; but, in fact, they have announced their proposals, which is a different thing. If the noble Lord tries to tell us that it is not a different thing, then he is not being fair to his subject; because one thing that must happen is that when proposals are put forward they must have a date on them. That is one of the things that must be done. Therefore it is not correct to say that when they are putting forward a proposal, including a date, they are announcing the closing of a particular line or station on that date; they are announcing that they propose it should be closed on that date. There is a difference there and it is rather an important difference.

Noble Lords are interested in the question of hardship. I am not going to attempt to discuss what hardship means; it would, in fact, be quite wrong for me to do so. The reason why is a significant one. In the Act, hardship is of course not defined, and, in practical terms, the lack of definition means that hardship is left to the T.U.C.C. to assess on the evidence that is brought before them at the hearing. Any user who can demonstrate that the closure would produce hardship, to whatever extent and for whatever reason, will have his objection properly considered and carefully weighed by the Committee.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, forgive me for interrupting. The noble Lord himself, when discussing the Transport Bill, said a certain amount about this; and it was on this point that I was asking him. Perhaps I can remind him. He said: It is clearly desirable that the reports that the Minister receives and on which he is to found his consideration should be based on broadly similar lines and should adopt broadly similar criteria and standards for assessment of hardship. The point I was making was that here is Wales and Monmouth making a very wide assessment with which I fully agreed. If we cannot have these inquiries, will be give his blessing that they should all adopt the same width?

LORD CHESHAM

My Lords, I cannot see anything inconsistent between what I said then and now; because I think it would be a genuine cause of complaint for the user if the meanings of hardship were somewhere laid down. It would have been very difficult to lay down a comprehensive definition of hardship which would take in all possible reasons why people might suffer it. To attempt to do that and not to leave the question to the T.U.C.C. to assess hardship on the evidence before them would be a grave disservice to the user. I should hope that there would be a consistency of operation between the T.U.C.C.s, but, at the same time, it would be wrong to exclude any particular matter which can be described in the widest context as hardship. I am sure I am right about that.

What my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, want is much wider public discussion of matters other than hardship. The first, and perhaps the most important, is the economics of the service. My noble friend, if I understood him right, thinks that the commercial justification for each closure ought to be examined and debated in public. That is exactly what happened before the 1962 Act was passed; and that is exactly what Parliament deliberately changed in Section 56 of the Act. There were at least three good reasons for making that change. First, the new Railways Board was enjoined to operate on a commercially sound basis. Its general duty is "to provide railway services in Great Britain"; its financial duty is to break even as soon as possible. It was given a wide measure of freedom for achieving those objects. Requirements to justify in detail each closure proposal would hardly be consistent with these duties, and particularly when justifying them, as is suggested, in quarters and to people on whom those duties do not lie. The decision to propose the closure of a service or station is a plain matter of management. It is part of the operation of running a transport undertaking on commercial lines.

Secondly, under the old procedure, arguments about figures and alternative methods of operation wasted a lot of the T.U.C.C.s' time. These committees are voluntary local bodies and they were not, and indeed are not now, really equipped to deal with that kind of argument. They are ideally suited to the task they now have of assessing hardship and advising on alternative services. I might mention a point on alternative services which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. The noble Lord complained that certain proposals he had seen did not give alternative services. As the proposals are only announced at this stage, they would be hardly likely to do so, when they have yet to go before the T.U.C.C., which would consider that aspect of them.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, I disagree with the noble Lord, because these are detailed proposals, which in fact detail the available alternative services but say nothing whatever about a 10-mile gap where there are no alternatives at all. As the noble Lord will be aware, his right honourable friend would have the right to direct the Railways Board to provide an alternative service, if he thought fit.

LORD CHESHAM

I agree; but no doubt that particular aspect would be brought to his attention by the T.U.C.C. in their consideration. I do not think it is a very strong ground of complaint that the whole of that aspect had not been pre-considered by the Railways Board when putting through the proposal. I do not think we should complain about that.

The third point is that a decision to refuse consent on a closure or to insist on an alternative service is likely to mean expenditure by the Railways Board and hence, as things are to-day, by the Exchequer. Responsibility for that decision is placed by the new Act squarely where it belongs: on the Minister. Therefore I say it is right that he should be the one to judge the economic factors involved, though, of course, he would be helped by the T.U.C.C.'s advice on hardship.

I come to the other factors which the Minister must assess before deciding whether or not to give his consent. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for reading out a list which I used previously, because it saves my having to do it again, though I would remind your Lordships that it is not intended to be comprehensive. It seems to me that the majority of these non-hardship factors, if I may call them that, if not all of them, fall into one of two categories: either they are management matters, like figures of costs, economics of the line or alternative operating methods, or they are matters within the scope of Government Departments, like defence and planning.

In the first category, successive Ministers of Transport have always set their faces against intervening in management. We consider that the Board of a nationalised industry should be allowed to get on with its job without any more interference by the Government than is absolutely essential. This is even more important in the general philosophy of the 1962 Act than it was before. These management matters, therefore, are scarcely appropriate to a public examination, except in so far as they may cause hardship to individuals.

In the second category of matters, such as planning, no doubt the Minister will receive direct representations, which he will consider. But his advice on such matters would surely come from the normal process of inter-departmental consultations, and I doubt whether a public inquiry would add significantly to that advice. These are matters which ultimately require judgment in the light of national policies, and this is the function of the Government and in particular of my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport and of his colleagues and advisers. He has already set up the appropriate machinery to ensure that proper advice will be available and to take account of suggestions of this kind which are made by local authorities and others. I have to conclude, therefore, that the sort of changes which are proposed by my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross would expose the railway management decisions to question in a way that was never contemplated by the 1962 Act, without necessarily improving the advice which in any case is available to the Minister on the non-hardship aspects.

I should like to go back for a moment to some of the practical aspects of the noble Viscount's specific suggestion in regard to Section 90. If there were to be an inquiry under Section 90, it would clearly have to take place either before or after or concurrently with the T.U.C.C. consideration. It would have either to include or to exclude matters relating to hardship and alternative services dealt with by the T.U.C.C. I rule out the possibility of the inquiry replacing the T.U.C.C. consideration, because this seems plainly contrary to the intention of the Statute. For the same reason, I argue against an inquiry either before or at the same time as the T.U.C.C. examination of the matter. This leaves us with the possibility of an inquiry after the T.U.C.C. has reported, but I should think that this would have an unfortunate effect on the position of the T.U.C.C.s and on public confidence in their work. If the inquiry did not exclude hardship, there would be the possibility that the Minister might receive a different report on that aspect from the inquiry than he would from the T.U.C.C., and in that case the effect would be even worse.

Obviously, a great deal of importance has been attached to the channels that exist for giving the public the opportunity for making representations on grounds other than hardship, and I recognise the importance which both noble Lords attach to that side of the matter. As your Lordships know, the Government have already consulted a large number of representative organisations about the Board's proposals generally. Organisations and members of the public have also voluntarily made their views known on general issues and particular proposals, and certainly a lot of it has been of great value. My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport has also made it quite clear that he will carefully consider all relevant representations that are made to him when the Board give formal notice of a particular closure proposal. Views on matters other than hardship are likely to come more especially from local authorities and other responsible bodies. Their views will certainly be fully taken into account.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, to whom should a local authority send the information, if they are of the opinion that a line which it is proposed to close could be made viable by reducing or modifying the service? That is a management matter, which the noble Lord said would be excluded. To whom should the representations be made?

LORD CHESHAM

My Lords, the representations mentioned should be sent to the Minister. That does not exclude the possibility that, if the matter was a planning one, it might not reasonably be submitted to the Department that would normally deal with it. I should have thought that on the whole it was more convenient to make all representations to the Minister of Transport, with copies to the Department concerned; but the fact that in a planning matter only it might be sent to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government certainly would in no way inhibit its consideration by the Minister of Transport through the normal channels of inter-departmental consultation. My right honourable friend has also said that he will not hesitate to consult local authorities and other bodies if he thinks that they can help him on particular points.

We come to this as the position. The Minister will take two things into account when a closure proposal comes before him. First of all, there is the T.U.C.C.'s report on hardship. I would remind your Lordships again that this can include proposals for additional bus services or something to relieve the hardship if the trains go. Secondly, on the other side, there are all the other relevant factors. I think that the assessment of these factors, in the light of national policies, is firmly a matter for the Government, and, as I have pointed out to your Lordships, appropriate arrangements have already been made for this to be done.

LORD HAWKE

My Lords, 95 per cent. of my noble friend's reply could be regarded, I think, as rather unsatisfactory, but the last 5 per cent. was much more satisfactory. There seems to be some confusion in his mind on this question of management decision and to whom one can make representations. If the Minister is going to take fully into account all the possible alternative methods of operating these lines and so on, he is interfering in management decision. I feel that he must do it, but that rather "shoots down" the three original points that my noble friend made about the management decision and the Minister's responsibility for expenditure and so on.

The noble Lord made great play about Parliament having only recently revised the T.U.C.C., so that it would be wrong to enlarge it now. But I think that if Parliament at the time had been aware that proposals were going to be put forward for drastic closures of the railway lines of this country, based on figures which have been widely challenged, and which the Minister is not prepared to see challenged in any form of inquiry, Parliament might have considered that the old original form of tribunal was the more suitable for making these representations.

I do not want to be misunderstood. I appreciate, and I am sure the general public appreciates, that a great many railways and stations in this country have to be closed. But, at the same time, they want to make certain that the interested people have a full opportunity of putting their points of view and of hearing them answered in public. Anybody who has ever been connected with railways knows how difficult it is to establish the cost of operating any particular piece of railway. Of course, the saving on closing a piece of railway will never be anything like the theoretical cost of operating it.

There is, apparently, to be no discussion on these figures. Then when these local authorities, or users, or anybody else want to put forward suggestions for operating changes, such as operating light railways, there is no chance of discussing it. They can be put forward only to the Minister, who, apparently, will discuss them in his Ministry. The local authorities cannot receive any information about costs; they cannot be told that the cost of operating as a light railway would equally be prohibitive. They have merely to put the proposal to the Minister and leave the decision to him. They have to submit to closure without having any public discussion of the alternative proposals from users, or even of the basis for the figures. For the general public this will be most unsatisfactory. Dissatisfaction has already been expressed in the West Sussex area over this sort of thing. It is essential from the public relations point of view that the maximum information shall be available to the people who are going to use their services, otherwise they will feel that they are at the mercy of a diktat from the Ministry of Transport, and they will not like that at all.