§ 2.54 p.m.
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LINDGREN)My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I will now repeat a Statement which has just been made by my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport in another place. The Statement is as follows:
"As the House knows, no passenger closure can take place without my consent. While regional transport plans are being prepared, I shall not consent to any major closure, by which I mean a closure which is likely to conflict with those plans. I shall accordingly consider all closure proposals against the background of future economic and population trends, taking fully into account the possible economic and social consequences, including road congestion.
"I have therefore arranged with the British Railways Board that, even in those cases where I think it right to grant consent, the track will be retained for the time being unless I agree otherwise. The same arrangement will apply to those closures where consent has already been given, but where there is no commitment yet to dispose of the track.
"I shall certainly refuse consent, or attach appropriate conditions to a con- 38 sent, wherever I think this is necessary on account of hardship. For example, I have today decided to refuse my consent to the closure of twelve stations between Carlisle and Hellifield and the withdrawal of local services from this line.
Honourable Members in all parts of the House have asked me to stop closures to which my predecessor gave his consent, or to resume services already withdrawn. I am advised that I have no power under the Transport Act, 1962, to withdraw a consent already given or to insist on the restoration of a service already withdrawn. But I have power to vary or add to the conditions attached to those consents, and I shall not hesitate to do this where I think it desirable. In addition, there will be the safeguard about retention of track which I have already mentioned.
"I believe that unnecessary anxiety and uncertainty have been caused in the past by the operation of the full procedure in respect of certain closure proposals which might have been seen from the outset to be clearly unacceptable. In these cases time and energy were wasted in the long process of advertisement, hearing by the Transport Users' Consultative Committee, report to the Minister, and detailed consideration by the governmental machine. While I do not at present propose to ask Parliament to modify the statutory procedure, I have arranged for particulars of each passenger closure to be sent to me when the Board are ready to publish it. I will examine these quickly in consultation with the other Ministers concerned so that I may inform the Railways Board at once if the proposal in question is obviously unacceptable—at least for the time being—on account of its potential importance to national or regional planning. In such a case the Board have agreed to defer publication.
"In these ways we shall ensure that no irrevocable action is taken which might prejudice the development of policies of economic and transport planning; that there will be full and proper regard for social and hardship considerations; and that, at the same time, the railways and the country can achieve immediate financial savings wherever this is justified."
§ 2.58 p.m.
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, I am sure it will not strike the House as inappropriate to the importance of this subject that the first shots in the fresh rôle of government business should be fired on this particular subject. But I personally am pleased, as, I am sure, are all those on this side of the House, that it is the noble Lord who has fired them. I had the greatest pleasure personally in wishing him yesterday good luck in his appointment, because he is going to need it.
As to the Statement, for which we must thank him, it is quite plain, in view of much that was said by noble Lords on the Government Benches when they were in Opposition, that we receive this Statement quite without surprise, but most certainly not without comment. I must admit that the Statement begins:
As the House knows, no passenger closure can take placewithout the Minister's consent. There was one Member of this House—I myself—who thought that that applied when closure was proposed and objected to. I do not want to niggle the noble Lord about things of that kind, but I thought that that was so. More seriously, I think we should not accept the triumphant nature of this Statement, about half of which is merely a restatement of what has been the position up to now and what has been the action of the Minister of Transport up to now.May I quote further from the Statement? It says:
I shall accordingly consider all closure proposals against the background of future economic and population trends, taking fully into account the possible economic and social consequences, including road congestion.My Lords, that has always been the case. There is here nothing new whatsoever. The noble Lord may laugh. He has never accepted it; he has wilfully refused to; but that has none the less always been the case. It is the same with hardship. There is no triumph in the Minister saying that he will refuse his consent where hardship is caused. That has always been the case in the past as well.There are many other implications that we shall have to look at in this Statement. We shall have to look very carefully at the proposals whereby the Minister arrogates to himself decisions 40 about the day-to-day running and responsibility of management of the railways, which Parliament, I had thought, had laid down clearly were to be the responsibility of the Railways Board and which it would appear are not going to be their responsibility from now on.
As I read this Statement and as we have just heard it, we shall have to examine very carefully the actual legal position of what it is proposed the Minister should do. We shall have to look very carefully indeed at what is to be the cost to the taxpayer of the action that may result from this Statement, and Indeed into the positive side of the plan to reshape the railways, which unfortunately has always been rather overshadowed by the negative side of closures. We shall have to look at the effect of these proposals on the building up of that efficient, streamlined system which is the aim of the Railways Board.
We shall be discussing all these things, I am sure, at greater length on Tuesday. I certainly do not want to trespass into what we may be saying then, so I shall for the moment say that the point we shall have to look at most of all on Tuesday when we come to talk about the contents of the gracious Speech is whether, in view of the references in that Speech to a progressive transport policy, this can be said to be anything of the kind.
§ LORD LINDGRENMy Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for his personal references? Most of his statement, I think he will agree, was a statement of attitude towards the present Government's policy, and I think I can take advantage of his offer to deal fully with the answers to his questions on Tuesday, when we have the debate.
LORD FRASER OF LONDSDALEMy Lords, in so far as there was anything new in the noble Lord's Statement, will he make it clear whether there is a new policy and, if so, whether the effect of it will be to delay the bringing of the railways into a state of efficiency in which they can give higher wages to a smaller number of men who will be usefully employed in that part of the system which is viable?
§ LORD LINDGRENMy Lords, again with that question in the debate on I think it would be better to deal fully 41 Tuesday. But, briefly, the Government's policy is to relate all forms of transport to the economic and social conditions necessary to benefit the whole of this country.
LORD HENLEYMy Lords, may I say from the Liberal Benches that we most warmly welcome this Statement and feel that it shows something new? It shows a new approach, and we welcome this most strongly. I hope the Minister will not hesitate to ask Parliament to modify the statutory procedure, if necessary.