HL Deb 01 May 1984 vol 451 cc477-80

3.45 p.m.

Second Reading debate resumed.

Lord Tordoff

My Lords, in these circumstances one feels like a piece of salami in a sandwich. It is difficult to carry on a coherent debate on an important subject like London Transport when there are three Statements and nobody is quite sure when numbers two and three are coming through. I understand the problems which the Government Front Bench have and I would ask them to realise that there are problems in other parts of the House as well.

Having said that, I thank the Minister for coming to open this Second Reading debate. From the Government's point of view it shows a level of interest in the Bill. I have to apologise in advance to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, because I may not be able to be present for the wind-up. In the early evening I have another engagement which has been on the cards for quite a long time, and, although I will do my best to be here to hear what he has to say in reply to the debate, it may well be that it will not be possible. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Attlee will pass on any remarks the noble Lord may wish to make on anything that I have said.

I find it difficult to believe that the Bill is not at least partially a consequence of the Government's desire to dismantle the GLC. I do not find it entirely convincing that this Bill is a determined attempt to meet head-on the problems of transport in our capital city. There is no doubt that these problems exist. We have a road system which can hardly be dignified by the name "system". We have parking restrictions which are largely ignored. We have commercial operators breaking the rules with impunity. We have fines which are enforced to a minimum extent. We have average speeds that are falling. We have very little co-ordination of our public services and we have really no coherent overall investment policy.

The question we should be asking ourselves is how do we provide services which satisfy the needs of both Londoners and visitors to this capital city. The test of this Bill is how far it goes to meet that challenge. I believe that it does not meet the challenge, since it directs its attention to only part of the problem. The Alliance view is that land-use planning and transport policy are inseparable and that the question of London Transport should encompass not only buses and Tubes and British Rail but also cars and lorries and, indeed bicycles and pedestrians as well. This Bill singularly fails to integrate all those various aspects.

We believe that integration of services is a fundamental part of creating the confidence the travelling public require before they can trust themselves more fully to public transport. Unless we can create this confidence, people are going to continue unnecessarily to bring their cars into London, causing the congestion we are all aware of; we see it outside this very building every time we come into it. By integration I mean co-ordinating time-tabling as well as a rational fares policy. I include British Rail as well as the buses and the Underground.

I do not believe that the Bill attempts to give answers in any of these areas. In effect the major aim of the Bill is to remove democratic control and to put London Transport into the hands of a nationalised industry controlled by the Secretary of State. One also feels that it will bring pressure to bear to sell off public assets; it is part of the Government's continuing privatisation programme. When the Bill becomes an Act the real power will pass not into the hands of the people of London who need transport, but into the hands of the Treasury resulting in either increased fares or cuts in services—or, I fear probably both.

What we on these Benches would like to see is a metropolitan transport authority which is democrat-ically elected and which covers a wider area than the present GLC area—at least up to the circumference of the M.25 and probably beyond that because the M.25 itself will create a corridor on either side of transport activity which needs to be taken within the ambit of a metropolitan transport authority. It needs to be responsible for all the major roads within its area and it needs to have powers to delegate the secondary and minor road problems to the boroughs and to the districts. It should take responsibility for all public transport services within its area. We are not saying that it should operate those services itself, but rather that it should act as a well-managed holding company by setting standards; by setting the framework of prices, the broad shape of investment plans, the levels of revenue support and the general pattern of services within its area. All that should be done in consultation with the operators. In other words, we are talking of a really decentralised system within a democratic strategic framework.

There would be the opportunity, within this pattern, to give a greater role to some private enterprise and especially to some co-operative operators. But let us make it quite clear that this should not be allowed to undermine the profitability of the public sector. Encouraging the creaming off from the public sector of the profitable parts merely results either in a reduction in services which are needed to subsidise the less fortunate, or in the authority presenting itself with a higher Bill for revenue support. Of course, from these Benches we would ultimately like to see such an authority set within the context of a directly elected regional government along with water and health, and many other facilities which should be controlled at this strategic level. The Bill sadly does not take us in that direction.

The greatest error, as has already been said, is the way in which the Bill puts more power into the hands of the Secretary of State. Frankly, it is no good saying that Parliament provides a check any more than Parliament provides a check on the British Railways Board: only direct elections will do that. I should like to quote from a speech by a Government Minister in another place, at column 1654 of Hansard on 19th March. He said: We feel that no system of delegated elections would by any means prove satisfactory. We believe that it is essential that whoever shall be the representatives of the constituencies … should be checked by the healthy test of direct contact with those who elect them". That was a speech by a Conservative Government Minister—Mr. Ritchie, the president of the Local Government Board—speaking on 19th March, 1888, during the First Reading of the Local Government (England and Wales) Bill.

So in a real sense the Government are turning the clock back 100 years. At that time public indignation was running so high at the undemocratic nature of the administrative boards that were running London and were subject to corruption and inefficiency, that both Liberals and Tories in Parliament decided that it was necessary to set up the London County Council, and from that developed of course the whole London transport system that we know today. Now that democratic control is to be removed.

I do not propose to go into enormous detail on the clauses today. There will be plenty of time for that during the Committee stage of the Bill. But there are certain points that I would wish to make. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, we do not like the weakening of the obligations in the 1969 Act: the change from "meeting" the transport needs of London to merely "taking due regard" of the transport needs of London. Nor do we like the removal of the ability to test the statutory obligations in the courts, which was contained in that Act. We do not like the separation of the bus and Underground services because that, coupled with the Secretary of State's ability to force London Regional Transport to sell off assets, may cause it to lose its strategic control and may further undermine the possibility of integration of services.

We believe that the provisions relating to user representation are flawed and inadequate. The link between the consumer and the transport authority has already been weakened by the removal of the role of the elected councillor. I ask your Lordships to bear in mind that the authority will almost certainly sit in secret and not in committees open to the press—something to which my honourable friend the Member for Southwark and Bermondsey drew attention in relation to the Docklands Board, where this is already happening.

We regret the exclusion of consideration by the consultative committee of bus services licensed by the Traffic Commissioners. That seems to us to be a loophole which needs to be closed. We agree with the National Consumer Council, at least, that the representative councils should have the statutory right to be consulted by the Traffic Commissioners on licence applications. We will certainly be supporting at the Committee stage amendments to try to obtain proper statutory rights for them to be consulted rather than informed on a whole range of matters including fares and reductions in rail services. At present it seems to us that the consumer watchdog is toothless— particularly in view of the centralised power of the Secretary of State—and that its powers need to be strengthened.

The financial provisions of the Bill are curious in the extreme. The ability of the Secretary of State to precept local authorities embodies a totally new principle which, to my knowledge, is so far unknown to any Parliament in the world. Here we have a virtually unaccountable body levying taxes on those using a service. Indeed, it could well be that fares could be used as a means of raising Government income in much the same way as the present Government are using gas and electricity charges as a means of disproportionately taxing the less well off. The ability to claw back money seems unrestrained by any stated criteria.

We have heard from the noble Lord the Minister that the 84 London Members of Parliament will have the chance to debate this matter in another place. But that really does not have any meaning; it has nothing like the same meaning as the ability of local councillors to be challenged by their ratepayers and by their electorate and to speak up on a regular basis in their councils. We know that there will be a brief annual debate, but everybody knows that the weight of the Tory Members of Parliament coming from outside London will, at the end of the day, determine the decision on this matter. That will lead to tremendous frustration not only among those Members of Parliament, but among their electors.

Finally, I believe that the proposals on concessionary fares are still not acceptable. They allow for a backstop, but a very limited one. We are glad that the Secretary of State has come some way along that road and I hope that we can persuade him in the course of the Committee stage to go further. But it must be recognised that the better off boroughs are, frankly, unlikely to agree with those who are worse off to come into a scheme which crosses boroughs. If people are going to find themselves at the whim of their local borough council as to whether they can travel on concessionary fares merely within their own areas or across London—which of course is what most people want—we shall have a very unsatisfactory situation. In particular it is in those places where there is the greatest need of support for the handicapped and the disabled that rate capping will be at its most vigorous. Therefore, between now and the time when this Bill leaves this House, I hope that the Government will think again on the question of the concessionary fares.

This is a poor Bill. It is a continuation of the sort of dogmatic line that we have seen from this Government on a number of occasions recently, but on this occasion we hope that the Government will do what they do not always do with Bills passing through your Lordships' House: that they will unblock their ears and will listen to what is being said on all sides of the House, and will come to the aid of London Transport during the course of the Committee stage of this Bill.