London Regional Transport Bill

HL Deb 01 May 1984 vol 451 cc503-30

5.25 p.m.

Second Reading debate resumed.

Lord Mountevans

My Lords, there is an expression in transport called "the tidal flow" and the tides have certainly been flowing in and out with a vengeance this afternoon. At the outset, in bringing us back to the London Regional Transport Bill, I should like to apologise to the noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Lucas, and to those of your Lordships remaining, for not being able to stay until the debate is concluded. I must leave early for engagements relating to the Liverpool International Garden Festival which is opening tomorrow. At the same time, I express my sincere thanks to officials in the Department of the Environment and the Department of Transport for their willing and timely help with several facts not apparent from the Bill or from its preceding stages in another place.

I strongly welcome the Bill before us this afternoon. I had reservations about last year's Transport Bill but this Bill goes a long way towards meeting them. As a non car owner, ratepayer and taxpayer, I am a committed user of, and payer for, public transport. I support the Bill because I feel that it takes several steps towards the public transport system which I should like to see enjoyed by Londoners as well as visitors—British and foreign—to our city.

I think that we are all in agreement on the need for some form of public transport. There are social grounds, such as the immobility of those many who lack access to cars. There are energy grounds. Public transport is, by most yardsticks, the most efficient user of a dwindling, perhaps even finite, resource. There are environmental arguments for public transport. The question is really one of what degree of public transport we need and to what extent its users should be subsidised. So far as I know, no public transport system in the world makes a profit purely by means of fares, so one comes to two issues: the source of funding and its application.

Many concerned with the source side will argue that subsidies, from whatever source, should be as generous as possible and that fares should be as low as possible in order to maximise usage. The logical extension of that argument is totally free transport. In that context I remind your Lordships of a formidable array of facts marshalled by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, on the Second Reading of last year's Bill. She was very persuasive and demonstrated that the commercial sector—the major source of tax and, as the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, pointed out, of rate subsidy—enjoyed no say in how its contributions were spent and could see its viability being threatened by the ever-increasing burdens being inflicted upon it, particularly in this context, in terms of rates. I totally accept her arguments and would only add to them by pointing out that many of those who are canvassed—and on at least one occasion this afternoon has been mentioned—are Londoners who are in favour of this, that and the other, or who have voted, when called upon, for cheap transport, but who have no ratepayers' interest in the subsidising of that transport.

I raised this thought as an aside last year and have been given some figures, admittedly nationwide, which suggests that perhaps 20 per cent. of domestic rate income due is in fact central funding laundered through the social security system. Similarly, perhaps 20 per cent. of the rate income due is funded by the unemployment benefit system. I accept that these are national figures but I still feel that, trading off inner city deprivation in London against a lower than national level of unemployment one might well find that a third of those who voted for Fares Fair—perhaps more who. when polled by the public opinion polls, supported such policies—were not going to subsidise that policy from their own pockets. They were getting all the fun without the risk; and, being human they were bound to vote, if not for something for nothing then certainly for something for not a lot. I feel that the one-third central subsidy and two-thirds ratepayer subsidy initially proposed in Clause 13 of the Bill is an equable one for a capital city.

The real hope that I have of this Bill however, lies not in the source of funds which it specifies but in the application of those funds. Although London has by any standard a high proportion of farebox revenue as a share of the total costs of its transport system, I remain unconvinced that the funds thus spent, or indeed the subsidies, are generating value for money. There are a number of welcome developments in London Transport, such as the increasing use of one-man buses as opposed to crewed ones. This step is helped by the spread of travel-card usage—something in which we seem to lag behind most of the rest of the world. Further sectors of the Underground, too, are going over to one-man operation. But the Underground still parallels bus routes in far too many instances. Tickets are still checked when we board a train and collected when we leave the system, and yet there is opportunity for fraud—a topic which, surprisingly, is not covered in the Bill.

Buses designed for one-man operation are all too frequently crewed by two people. Is this. I ask myself, an efficient way of spending the farepayers' money and the subsidy money, wherever that money comes from? The answer, to me. is. "No"—a "No" amplified by the fact that, in spite of Fares Fair, senior citizens' passes, travel cards and all manner of other inducements and incentives, only some 25 per cent. of London Transport's offer of bus seat miles is taken up, and perhaps 30 per cent. of its tube seat miles. Those figures are from the most recently available annual report.

Put another way, some 75 per cent. of bus seat miles and 70 per cent. of tube seat miles offered on the Underground are, whatever the incentives, irrelevant to London Transport's customers. No commercial business, I feel, could survive if the product or service it was selling was offered without due consideration for the existing demand for that product or service. The present system does not suggest a degree of efficiency, nor does it suggest to me that I am getting value for money. It is failing to appeal to its captive or its potential users. They are rejecting it on grounds of, perhaps frequency or reliability, of convenience or of perceived value.

Against that background I hope that when this Bill reaches the statute book the Minister will take a long hard look at the use to which London Transport puts its money and at the excess of supply over demand. I hope that its officials will take the same look at the Tyne Wear system, which has so many strengths where London Transport is weak: one man operated buses kept out of the city centre with passengers encouraged to use the metro; and good park-and-ride facilities at suburban stations which are themselves unmanned—a system which I believe to be a model of its kind and a tribute to those who conceived it. I also hope that the Minister's officials will examine how other major conurbations outside Britain have sought to minimise costs, to tailor supply to demand and to maximise their effectiveness.

As I said at the beginning, I welcome this Bill because it goes some of the way to giving London and its hinterland the efficient and cost-effective transport system which I believe it needs. There are still steps to be taken, and these are signposted in Part II of the Bill. In pursuit of increased efficiency and value for money, I hope that the Secretary of State will consider using his powers to produce better integration between London Regional Transport and British Rail, and not simply to encourage the formation of liaison committees. It seems undesirable to have parallel routes operating to different remits; parallel routes subsidised in one instance by the means outlined in Part I of the Bill and in the other by means of the PSO grant to British Rail. Both London Regional Transport and British Rail have an essential role to play in moving us all to and fro, but it should be an integrated role in pursuit of a common objective and one played by the same set of rules. If that comes to pass we shall have a public transport system both efficient and commercially attractive to users, and one that is, I hope, viable.

5.35 p.m.

Baroness Denington

My Lords, I thought it might be helpful if I were briefly to outline how the present position of London Transport has developed from 1964 to the present time; that is, a bird's-eye view of one who was a member of the GLC, a bird's-eye view from inside. In 1964 the GLC was brought into being. At that time London Transport was under the control of the Government through the London Passenger Transport Board. Transport services in London were run down. Londoners were vociferous in their complaints about it. It was perfectly clear that control from Whitehall was not successful. Neither Ministers nor civil servants were close enough to the problems; nor were they interested enough in the complexity and the detail of them. Nor were they able to give enough time to the matter to make it the vital, attractive, and successful service that the capital city must have.

The new leader of the GLC, Mr. Fiske, later Lord Fiske, knew that transport is a service that needs to be closely integrated with the policies for roads and traffic management. He was determined to bring control of London Transport to the GLC, to effect this integra-tion and to provide London with a good service. After negotiations with Barbara Castle—and I might say that Barbara Castle was only too glad to get shot of the thing—the transfer was agreed and the Act effecting it was passed in 1969.

How curious it is that the Government are now determined to take back control. 1 think they are no more likely to succeed with it this time than they did before. It is a service that needs involvement and understanding by locally elected councillors; that is, directed by those responsible to the main users—the electorate—and part of the total transport plan for vehicles and roads of the capital city.

The efforts between 1969 and today have been to achieve just that, starting from a poor and depressed base left by the Government of the time. Curiously, by 1969 the GLC had changed from Labour to Tory, and Mr. Plummer (now Lord Plummer, a Member of your Lordships' House) was leader of the council. He refused to take over London Transport unless the outstanding debt was written off, and all of us must be grateful to him for fighting that fight and for winning it. The Government gave in and London Transport was transferred debt free.

In 1973 Labour regained control of the GLC. Transport had been a major issue in the election as it was still in a deplorable state after six years of Tory rule and the GLC. I speak from absolute inside knowledge because I was landed with the task of being chairman of the transport committee in 1973—and I say "landed with it" because it was never a thing I ever sought. The transport service had to be drastically improved. Traffic congestion on the roads was acute. It was clear that commuting by car had to be reduced, and this could only be achieved by the improvement of the public transport service in frequency, reliability and atttractiveness in every way, including the level of fares.

The situation of the service at that time was as follows. As chairman I asked why we could not have more buses. People were waiting hours for a bus and everybody was up in arms. The answer was that there was an acute shortage of staff, and there was a shortage of staff because the rates of pay of London Transport staff were so low that, even though vacancies were advertised, nobody would do the work. We then started to negotiate and got the pay moved up. We then had the staff. All that time there was no staff and the buses that we needed on the roads simply stood in the garages month after month.

We had the staff. We got the buses out of the garages but they were not roadworthy. They were in a condition where they needed a lot of repair. We found that there were no spares. We went up and down the country to every possible available source. Meanwhile I had the staff whom I had recruited playing cards in the garages as we could not use the buses. We applied abroad for buses and did everything else that we could. We at last succeeded in getting more buses and began to improve the bus service. I wanted to explain the situation when in 1973 the Labour Party took over that most important service. We ordered new buses. We had many buses with a one-man service to go to the areas that had been badly served or were not previously on bus routes, and so on.

The Underground was in a deplorable and rundown state. It was fantastically overcrowded. People were so crushed in the tubes coming to work that they could hardly breath. I know of firms that moved out to the expanding towns simply because their workers said that they could not travel any more. They moved out and the workers went with them because they were not prepared to use public transport as it was in such a state. Not only were the trains overcrowded; the stations were deplorable and some still are. They were utterly depressing and sordid. We ordered new trains and had a station improvement programme, which included renewal of the escalators and installing new ones. We planned new lines. The Jubilee Line relieved a lot of the overcrowding. That was its whole purpose and it did that. The link to Heathrow was started.

There was the acquisition of station car parks. The GLC had to go outside London to the peripheral areas to purchase land for car parks in order to get park-and-ride on British Rail and at some LT stations. We had to purchase land to do that. At the same time, in order to discourage cars from the roads, which we were trying desperately to do, we purchased derelict sites in London which were being used for car parking by people coming in in private cars.

It is perfectly plain to anybody who thinks for five minutes that such a programme could not possibly be embarked on without incurring a great deal of expenditure. Of course it could not. We had transport supplementary grants from the Government, which helped, but the GLC rate had to finance a large proportion of the expenditure, and it still has to. Nor did the GLC embark on this without realising the consequences. I remember vividly a meeting with the London Transport Executive. Its top people came over to County Hall and went over with us the financial implications of the programme that we were embarked upon. It was quite alarming. I remember going to talk to Sir Reginald Goodwin, who was the very sober-minded leader of the council and who had been finance chairman. He was no wild man. Not a Ken Livingstone—not that I really think that Livingstone is as wild as some people say: sometimes very misguided.

We saw where we were going. We saw that year by year the subsidy would increase, and increase very seriously, but we were the authority responsible for public transport and for enabling business to thrive in the capital city of this land. We knew that we had a duty not to fail it. That is what we were trying to do.

Lord Fanshawe of Richmond

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. I have listened with fascination to her description of events during the past years since 1973, when she held a position of great responsibility in the GLC. During this entire period I represented a London seat in the other place and watched the deterioration of London Transport until 1973. After 1973 it deteriorated even more. I do not remember any sign of this great improvement, better management or a better life for Londoners travelling by rail or bus after the magic period of time when the Labour Party came into power in 1973.

Baroness Denington

My Lords, I am describing the programme we embarked on. Nobody on this earth can wave a magic wand and immediately in 1973 see all the improvements. You are planning ahead. That is what I am saying. We were looking at the financial implications which would build up year by year as the programme built up and the service improved. I cannot agree with the noble Lord. There has been some improvement, although not nearly enough.

The London Transport Executive people were very worried, and so were we. They pressed us at that time to increase the fares to bring in more money because of the rising subsidies. From their point of view, they were perfectly right. Of course they wanted more income and were very frightened of the rise in subsidies that they saw coming in year by year, but from the GLC angle they were not right and we were. We had to improve public transport, get cars off the roads and keep fares down, because as fares go up you lose riders. We had to get more people on to public transport.

Here is the true dilemma. For London to thrive as a business centre, it must have an efficient, adequate and attractive public transport service to get its workers to their destinations in a state fit to work, and the fare level must be such that the service will be used by as many as can be induced to use it. If the service is not adequate, people will take to their cars. That has been proved over and over again. London's roads are totally inadequate to cope with the level of traffic that they have to carry even now. They must be relieved of private cars as much as possible. This is the basis of a policy. Traffic jams affect all activities. Workers do not get to work on time if there are traffic jams and goods do not get delivered.

This is the nub of the problem. The service has to be good, which demands a great subsidy. Fares must not go too high or you lose your ridership. The Government think they have a magic formula to solve the problem. What is it? It is breaking up London Transport into bus and Underground operations. I think that is fatal. Privatisation is the magic word as far as the Conservative Party is concerned. I suppose they think that privatisation will make the service more efficient and therefore save money. I do not know what they think it will do, but I must say that I am exceedingly worried about it.

May I return for a moment to Mr. Livingstone? I think the Government would do well to try and look very carefully at what he did with London fares. I think he ought to be given very full marks for never giving way to the very strong Labour Party lobby that was on him to have free fares in London, which would have been quite disastrous. He did not give way to it. It is very useful to read carefully and to study what has happened under his fares policy. When the fares went up again, public transport lost travellers—ridership. When the fares are low, then people leave their cars at home and they use public transport. It is no good pretending that the level of fares is not exceedingly important.

What nobody has yet arrived at is exactly where the blame lies, the particular point at which you hold your ridership. What Mr. Livingstone was doing was really very interesting in that particular respect, because that is the key to the situation. If one could reach that position and if one could then increase subsidies in line with inflation, or the rate subsidy in line with inflation, one might really get a stable policy. That is something I was trying to get at, but I was there as chairman for only two years and that did not give me very long. I do not want to go on for too long but I thought that perhaps some history from the inside and the way I saw it might be useful to some people's understanding of the matter.

There is only one other point I want to make, and that will take me half a minute. It is one detail on which I am in line with other people. It is the question of free fares for the elderly. I have great pride in having started the present system. In my view they should remain free, totally free. I would hate to see boroughs here and there charging 25p, or £1 or more, or something like that, for the permit. It ought to be a totally London-wide policy, and it ought to stay with the Post Office. We started it off with the boroughs. Pensioners had to go to the town halls to get their passes. We very easily transferred it, for certain reasons—partly that, but not entirely—to the Post Office. They were most co-operative. It is a marvellous thing for the old people. They all, or nearly all, go to the Post Office to collect their pension every week, and it is so easy for them. I would beg the Government to do all they can with the boroughs to see that it remains a free service, a London-wide service, and that it stays with the Post Office.

5.53 p.m.

Lord Molloy

My Lords, may I preface what I have to say by stating quite clearly that I am one of those who strenuously resist the bawlings of the past drowning the whispers of the future. Nevertheless, in a moment on behalf of millions of Londoners, I am going to acknowledge the great debt they owe to the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, for magnificent work she did, both in housing and on London Transport. I have some authority so to do, having held nearly every chair in local government in London. At the time the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, was chairman of the transport committee, I was one of those who harassed her in my high, official capacity as leader of the Fulham Borough Council.

I can remember the same arguments being advanced by Tories then as have been advanced today. The situation, indeed, was the same. I listened to the noble Lord who spoke just before the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, when he was somewhat apprehen-sive about the subsidies that were going to be paid. It was the same situation then as it is today. The very well-off in this country get more relief from taxes and proportionately pay less taxes than sometimes the old-age pensioners and the very poor. Yet in my days as leader of the borough council it was those people who were the biggest bellyachers, as indeed they are today.

First there was the LCC, of which the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, was a member. Then later there was the GLC. We all know why the GLC was created. It was because the Tories thought they were never going to win if it remained the LCC, so they chopped it all round. Sir Keith Joseph did that, but it failed after a while. The Government said, "We are not having this lot running London", so out they went. Now the Conservatives are in the position of saying, "If you get an LCC, there is the danger that wicked Labour will run it; if you get a GLC, there is a danger that wicked Labour will run it; there is only one course left—abolish it altogether and appoint bureaucrats to run it". This is the massive democratic Conservative Party.

I believe this is something that is a distasteful mark on society, whipped up by sometimes ill-informed journalists and also by party propagandists who know full well there is no need to tell the absolute truth because the mass of people will not really check up on it. We did check up on it, and we found that that was a fact. I have checked up on it recently. Members on the other side know very well that there are people exceedingly well-off who proportionately pay less income tax than some pensioners and the very poor at the bottom of the income scale. In my judgment that deserves just one word—disgraceful. When they resist having to pay a subsidy in their rates, that is an abomination and we should say so loudly and clearly.

Reading the Bill, as I have had to do over the weekend, I have discovered that what I have to be careful about is to make very certain that 1 do not slip into making Committee points. When it comes to Committee I will be involved in that, and I hope I shall not be making any Second Reading points. This is the dilemma. It is indeed the hallmark of an appalling, rotten piece of legislation. Look all through the legislation that has passed through the other House and through this Chamber. This is what people like Winston Churchill, Aneurin Bevan, Harold Macmillan and a few others have said, that that hall-mark is so clear on rotten legislation. I mince no words: this is indeed a piece of rotten legislation.

One realises and has to acknowledge that there have been members of both parties in the GLC who have striven to resolve the many problems that afflict London Transport. LCC Conservatives and LCC Labour people—and it was the same with the GLC—all knew that what they were trying to deal with was 20th century traffic on 18th century roads. The moment they tried to make better and bigger roads to carry the transport through London they found that the costs were enormous and that there was no real solution at hand.

I can remember when it was possible to travel on trams from Fulham up through Hammersmith, and right across to the East End of London, for a couple of bob, and to do it faster than you could by any bus today. I believe we made a great mistake in abolishing the trams. It seemed to be an absurdity that years later—yes, under a Labour administration in County Hall—we brought back the safe lanes for the buses to travel in. It would have been much easier if we had left it as it was with the trams, when we were able to get so very surely from one place to another.

But I believe that over the years the endeavours of all GLC councillors, in both the major parties, who have held office—and sometimes when they have not held office; by their opposition, Conservative opposition to Labour councils and Labour opposition to Conservative councils—have been to strive valiantly to try to find a solution. I believe that they are really making an effort now to get to that position and to hold that desideratum, because the facts are these. We in Britain are always a little loath to show what we are good at. It so happens that, of all the capital cities in the world—and 1 have travelled in most—probably the best form of public transport is that in Greater London, and we should acknowledge that, because foreigners acknowledge it.

This Bill, if it ever becomes law, will stop dead in its tracks the gradual resolving of very difficult problems. The real offence of the GLC, I believe that I can say to the Benches opposite, is that it has been too successful in resolving some of these problems. Of course "Fares Fair" was attacked right, left and centre. One of the borough councils was put up to bring the whole matter to this Chamber for the judges who sit here to decide upon. They decided that it was illegal. What a heinous offence! Fancy putting down the fares for nearly five million Londoners and half a dozen Law Lords say that it must not be done! It therefore had to be done another way, but that is not how a sensible and civilised nation should behave.

I could well understand if it was a bunch of company directors on the make who were doing a bit of tax evasion. I could then understand the Law Lords intervening. But there is not one blemish on the conduct of either Opposition or the majority party councillors in the GLC who debated this great issue. Many of the Conservatives supported the proposals that came forward. Here was an almost unified Greater London Council that had produced a great scheme. That was to its credit. What happened—this is the mark of irritation—is that there were fewer cars on London streets, less pressure on parking, and suddenly more revenue. Why? Because there were more passengers. This was the result of an intense examination by councillors of both parties and particularly by those of my party who knew London and the problems of Londoners. It is they, not any Secretary of State nor bureaucrat in the office of the Secretary of State for Transport, who have continued to find the answer. The Secretary of State and his officials are too remote from the running of this capital city.

The other distasteful aspect about it all is that discussion will be superseded by the diktat of a Conservative Minister. Nearly everyone agrees, in the other place as well as in this House, that the Government have developed an obsession with attacking the GLC and also the poor and particularly the elderly. Your Lordships can speak to any old age pensioner. 1 meet them in various capacities as chairman of a number of tenants' associations and as chairman of the metropolitan area of the Royal British Legion, which includes the equivalent of 40 towns. Those soldiers, sailors and airmen a few years older than myself find that living in London with the pass is a boon. That is no longer safe. Indeed, nothing much is safe in the hands of the Government.

The agony is that there are a million people who find that the sort of solution which the GLC has worked out helps them enormously. Now it is to be sacrificed on the altar of cuts. This is an Act, if it comes about, which will be mean and unworthy. It will reverse the principle embraced at one time by all parties that we should seek to establish the caring society and not supplant it with the callous society.

Civic pride is to be surrendered to personal greed in the field of privatisation. I have never met any ordinary Londoner who wanted to own London Transport, who wanted to own trams or buses. He could not even afford a car. What Londoners were prepared to do was to work and to give whatever they could to have an efficient London transport system. If privatisation is carried to its logical conclusion—I think that the Minister should answer because Londoners want to know—will the day come under Conservatism when the roads will be privatised and we shall be back to paying the old tolls? That is the logic. The question has already been asked and should be answered.

The future of London will always depend on the millions on the move every day. They travel by bus, by train, by lorry, by taxi, by cycle, on foot, and in some cases on horseback in this wonderful city that we know as London. They do so for a variety of reasons. Under this Government, under Toryism, many do it looking for work. Millions of Londoners, young and old, are looking for work. Many of the problems are the result of the unplanned entrepreneurial, money-grubbing, helter-skelter growth that was taking place in this great capital city some 70 or 80 years ago. At that time there was no responsibility for civic pride and no responsibility for care for the future.

Should this Bill pass into law, London's transport will surely move into chaos. In saying "London's transport", I do not mean the executive. I mean all the people who drive the buses and the trains and so on and so forth. I am talking of the mass of millions of Londoners who have to move about to go to work, to see their loved ones or to go out for pleasure. Under the Bill, all that will degenerate into chaos, or they will have to pack it in. It seems to me that the Bill, with its concentration on centralisation while dishing out the possibility of some money to be made by private entrepreneurs who probably support the Tory Party, is a mix-up, a sort of myopic Chairman Mao's reading.

With over-centralisation through the Ministry and a few handouts to those who make financial contributions, the Bill will vent its bilious spleen on millions of Londoners who will receive a lower subsidy for public transport. For many, this means that they will not be able to travel at all. This proud city which, with all its faults, has the most efficient public transport of any European city, will slowly slip into the mire.

The Government are now more or less the vampire of local democracy. They are draining the lifeblood of all the resources of local government and using them in central Government, and cutting with their incisor the arteries of democracy. Two years ago, we did not take much notice. However, as the process moves relentlessly on. we can see what is happening. I believe that it behoves all in this House, even if they agree with the Government, to say "Take care, we may have to oppose you on a number of issues". If I was a Conservative I would say this.

I am gravely apprehensive about the constant threat to elected democracy and a form of government that is older than our national government—British local government. This is something that we have to beware of. I hope that before the Bill becomes law there will be a number of proposals that will prove attractive to Members on all sides of this ancient Chamber. We have a responsibility to this great city. It might be said that I am arguing a point that only supports the socialist cause. The fact is that many of the things that we have recommended in Labour-controlled boroughs have been supported time and again by Conservative Oppositions. I have led delegations of Conservative and Labour councillors to both Labour and Conservative Ministers. If it happened to be Fulham or the GLC, we put those authorities first.

It would be a good idea, when this Bill is examined in detail in Committee, for us to take full cognisance of the views of members of all parties serving on the GLC and to acknowledge that they, too, have a contribution to make which might ease the savageness of the Bill and not damage too much the dignity, as well as the great efforts that have been directed towards its development, of London Transport. Slowly but surely it has moved to find an answer. It would be a great shame if that movement towards a solution was halted by an injudicious and not particularly wise Bill.

6.10 p.m.

Lord Teviot

My Lords, before I start on my own intervention I must mention that my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes was obliged to attend a meeting of the special health authority of which she is a member. Today's meeting is dealing with a particularly urgent matter for which her presence is essential. Therefore she was unable to take her place in this debate. She greatly regrets this and has asked me to explain it to your Lordships.

She has also asked me to raise one point which has been touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Mountevens, and which she had intended to discuss because she believes it to be highly relevant to this Bill. There is for London Transport each year a major loss of revenue which is due to fraud, to a large extent passenger fraud. Very large amounts of money are involved, certainly millions of pounds. The recent London Transport report shows that progress to reduce fraud is being made but it remains a great problem. My noble friend believes that the transport authority requires further powers to eliminate passenger fraud and that there should be a provision in this Bill for imposing immediate financial penalty. All major continental cities have on-the-spot fines for these situations. Perhaps we might call it an instant surcharge for those without a ticket or with an invalid ticket, or a deliberate over-rider paying a minimum fare only. My noble friend has asked me to place this matter before your Lordships so that the Minister can consider it, in view of her intention to introduce an amendment at the Committee stage.

Now I start on my own speech. I welcome this Bill. As your Lordships will know, I have had a long interest—at one stage direct—in the transport industry and it would be hard for me to remain silent on a Bill of such fundamental significance for the future of transport in London. The progress of this measure has not been without controversy in another place, and one appreciates that the situation here will be the same. But I hope that I can speak today in a bipartisan way and attempt to approach the issue from the standpoint of a transport person and as a passenger.

Like other noble Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Trefgarne for outlining so clearly the provisions of this Bill. I welcome the Bill as an opportunity to secure real improvements in the provision of public transport for those who live in London, those who commute and those who visit, either from this country or from abroad— improvements which have so sadly eluded us in the years since the war. I hope therefore that I will have his and the House's forbearance if I spend a few moments indicating ways in which I believe the Government could best give the lead in securing practical improvements for the passenger and in encouraging the operators to respond in the most positive way to the possibilities opened up by the passage of this Bill.

I am sure it is common ground between us that London's public transport was the envy of the world in the 1930s. Sadly that is no longer true. Commuters in Paris, Brussels, Hamburg, Lille, Washington and increasingly in the dynamic growing cities of the newly industrialised world in South East Asia would be disappointed by the age, the appearance, the service, and—to use a modern phrase—the lack of user friendliness of much of London's public transport.

I do not wish to analyse in depth the reasons for this sad decline. But much of the blame must go to the absence of common objectives set for the principal operators in London, London Transport and British Rail, who have been attempting to work to different financial regimes against a background in the past 10 years or so of increasingly bitter political debate about the role of public transport and the financial resources which should be allocated to it. This debate has blocked the way for dynamic change despite the considerable efforts of the operators to work more closely together and despite some of the initiatives, which I applaud, to simplify fares and encourage the use of transport free from artificial barriers.

That is why I believe the new structure that is proposed, with London Regional Transport as well as British Rail reporting to the Secretary of State for Transport, will for the first time, with the exception of a few years during the days of the British Transport Commission, enable common objectives to be set for both enterprises working to the same financial master.

It has been said by some that the net result of all this will be simply to reduce the net cost of public transport to the taxpayer and ratepayer irrespective of the level of service. Clearly cost reductions will flow from more efficient operation. Both London Transport and British Rail are separately seeking significant economies through the more effective use of resources, both materials and labour. Both the taxpayer and the ratepayer expect and have a right to expect that their services are produced as cheaply as possible.

But they also expect, and have a right to expect, better services; and this is an expectation which I am sure the Secretary of State will not wish to ignore. I understand that he is committed to speedy action in establishing London Regional Transport once the measures that are now before Parliament move onto the statute book. The speediest way he could convince the London passenger that this is not simply a cost-cutting measure and that real benefits will flow would be to give his encouragement to the extension of the Travelcard system of zonal flat fare travel to British Rail services within the present GLC boundary. The success of the Travelcard is not in dispute. London Transport estimate that as a result of Travelcard alone, journeys increased by 8 per cent, and had a positive effect on receipts.

Both operators, I understand, are keen to extend it, given the necessary financial arrangements. On simple grounds of equity it would do much to convince the minds of those who live south of the Thames, many of them excluded from the Underground network, of the benefits of London Regional Transport. By this single step of fares integration, the Secretary of State could do more than anything else to ease the natural fears and anxieties about this Bill and secure public goodwill and support for this re-organisation. I believe this is so important that I should like to ask my noble friend who is going to reply to the debate for an assurance that the Government will give early and favourable consideration to this step.

Fares integration along these lines—and both British Rail and London Transport have been working closely together for a number of years on extending through ticketing between their services—will, I believe, do much to remove the artificial barriers to travel resulting from queueing and inconvenient interchanges, and throw up interesting new travel patterns. Transport made easy for the customers will produce more customers. This in turn could do much to create a new climate in which to consider, without any institutional barriers, opportunities for selective new investment which could improve modal interchange and mobility; not that we need delay considering new investment which is so necessary for the refurbishment.

In the early days of railways in London, such barriers were less of a problem. For instance, Great Western trains ran through on the Metropolitan line to Aldgate—a practice, incidentally, which continued until well into this century. Trains from south of the river could also run north from Blackfriars through Snow Hill tunnel to connect up with services coming in from the north of the City. There was even a service that went from Liverpool Street and round the East London line down to the south-east. There are other examples.

I believe we now have an unrivalled opportunity to look afresh at the possibilities. Imaginative schemes, modest in comparison with the expenditures in other cities, could revitalise the role of public transport. I believe the operators would respond positively if encouraged to work up such schemes. The growing commuter belt of the Thames Valley could benefit from swifter links through to the city, and in the more distributed patterns of work and leisure there could be a powerful commercial as well as operational case for improving access between the northern and southern suburbs via a re-opened Blackfriars-Snow Hill line.

It is not insignificant that British Rail's plans to close Marylebone and develop services into Paddington and on London Transport into Baker Street make for more sense when looked at jointly by those organisations than individually. By the same token, schemes to expand travel opportunities will look far more sensible in the round and I look to the Secretary of State, in his crucial role of co-ordinating London Regional Transport and British Rail, to encourage a creative approach and ask for proposals. I am sure he will not be disappointed and that schemes could be developed which were modest and cost effective when viewed against alternative expenditure. There are many who believe that relatively limited forms of investment in public transport can avoid the need for high expenditure on road investments designed to relieve congestion. I should also like to ask my noble friend for an assurance that the Secretary of State will take steps to encourage operators to look positively at such proposals.

I have little more to say. However, I believe that there is room for slight improvement in this Bill not as regards the underlying principles, but as regards tightening up certain areas. One such area concerns ensuring that the procedure for co-ordinating LRT and BR has teeth. I believe that this could be done by making a small but important amendment to Clause 34 which would stipulate that a specific measurement of progress towards service and integration will have to be expressed in the annual report.

The second amendment—of which I will give my noble friend advance warning at the earliest opportunity—is dealt with in Clause 44 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Bill and I feel that it should be brought forward in the present Bill. In fact it strengthens Section 35 of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981.

I do not believe that I have mentioned buses. However, in my view they have a great future and should be promoted. One of the ways in which that could be done would be by making maps or other directional aids more acceptable to people. I was fortunate because as a child I travelled with my mother who had a great aversion to the Underground. Thus I learnt where all the buses went, and I believe that my noble friend on the Front Bench is also an expert in the matter. However, generally very few people are experts. Some people find maps totally impossible to learn. London Transport has produced some maps depicting various diagrams to make travel fairly easy; but those maps are only for those who can understand them. Somebody could be enterprising and write a charming, witty and funny book to make the situation easier.

I almost feel that I should sit down at this moment. I have been tempted to take up many points with those noble Lords opposite who have debated the Bill so vigorously. I am sure that they felt that they could have stood up and interrupted me on many occasions, but they have declined to do so. However. I look forward to having splendid arguments when we try to improve the Bill in the Committee stage.

6.23 p.m

Earl Attlee

My Lords, I must begin by declaring a pecuniary interest because when I retire I shall be in receipt of a minuscule pension from British Railways having worked on the Southern Region for seven years. I believe that, at today's rate, that pension will buy me approximately one pint of beer a week.

It is interesting that of all the speeches that I have heard today not one has mentioned the problem of the commuters who live 40 or 50 miles outside London and who commute into London every day. I should like to spend a little time on this matter; but before doing so I should like to take up the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans who admittedly apologised that he would not be present for the conclusion of the debate. The noble Lord quoted bus-seat miles and train-seat miles and explained that British Railways and London Transport were very inefficient. Why was that so? The noble Lord said that the reason was that approximately 70 per cent. of these bus-seat miles were not utilised, and if they were efficient they would be utilised. I do not wish to be rude to the noble Lord, but this is the trouble with people who do not actually know what they are talking about when it comes to transport. If we take British Railways, the Tube, or the buses in the rush hour we find that they are packed solid. What will the transport companies do outside the rush hour—not provide a service at all? No, they must provide a regular service. Therefore, we will see buses and trains travelling with only one or two passengers, and of course that will be inefficient.

However, as regards British Railways there is a different problem. In the morning thousands of trains come into London from the coast and from the suburbs. To bring those passengers into London the trains have first to go out of London empty in order to collect them. Therefore, all those empty seat miles are tallied against British Rail. I may be biased in favour of the Southern Region, but in fact it is the most highly-utilised railway system in the world for commuters and it could only be that because it is the most efficient. The fact that after seven years British Railways and I parted not on exactly the best of terms, is no reason why I should not tell your Lordships the truth.

What will the Bill do for commuters who live outside London? As most—maybe 70 per cent.—travel by public transport this is a very important question. It is impossible for British Railways to lay on more trains in the rush hour, for London Transport to lay on more buses or for the Underground to lay on more Tube trains. Therefore, the only alternative will be some means of clearing the streets of central London so that we can bring in more coaches. I have a nasty feeling that this Bill will fail abysmally not for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, mentioned, but for the reason that at the moment there are far too many questions which are unanswered. If one contacts the various transport organisations and asks them for their opinions on the Bill or for any suggestions that they may be able to make, they normally cannot be specific and say, "We just do not know. So much is up to the Secretary of State". For example, what will be LRT's sphere of influence? What about the fringe areas of Greater London? Will its influence reach out to there and then stop, or will it start meddling outside that area?

What worries me is that in the Bill there is reference to privatisation. Normally, when the Government talk about that matter, they are thinking of selling off the profitable sectors. If that were to happen it could be guaranteed that, however willing LRT may be to provide a good service for Londoners, it will fail because all transport organisations rely on the profit-making lines to support the non-profit-making lines. If we sell off the good lines, we are left with the bad ones and the service will go.

Why does the Secretary of State require reserve powers for the transfer of functions between LT and BRB? Why are they put into the Bill if they are not necessary? I am sure that the noble Minister will say: "It is just in case. Of course we would not do anything; we just want them there". But the danger is that whereas we can trust the noble Lord the Minister today, can we always trust those Ministers who will follow him? I should like to know why they want these reserve powers.

What we really require in Greater London is an integrated transport system. Personally, although I have no time for the GLC I cannot agree with the noble Lords who say that the service has gone down since the GLC took over. I normally use the Underground to travel to your Lordships' House and I have seen new trains, new rolling stock, brighter stations, new escalators and a wonderful mechanism whereby we get a dot matrix annunciator system so that we know in advance where the next two or three trains will be going and even at what time they will arrive.

Certainly these cost money but, as has been said previously, if we do not spend money on our transport system, we will lose more and more money. Buses are a typical case in point. If buses run regularly they will get custom. However, if one goes out on a cold winter's day to catch a bus which is due at 11.35, and at 12.15 it still has not arrived, one may follow that practice for two days but then one will become fed up and will not use the bus. A few days later the bus may come on time, but there will not be any passengers in it because they will all have given up. Therefore, with the use of modern computers, cameras, and all the rest, surely buses at least could be punctual—they do not have to be on the minute but they should be punctual to within five or possibly 10 minutes.

Lord Somers

My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Earl for a moment, will he not admit that in the centre of London, at any rate, punctuality is practically impossible because no bus driver can say to what extent he will be held up by traffic lights, traffic jams, or goodness knows what?

Earl Attlee

My Lords, I agree that it is impossible at the moment; but I am reliably informed that with the use of electronic pick-ups, the position of every bus could be monitored in a central control, so that one could see where buses are being delayed. The centre would be in touch with the bus drivers by radio. A great deal more could be done; but at the moment very little can be done. We have micro-computers in cars which tell one to shut the door, turn on the lights or fasten one's seat belt, so surely computers could be installed in buses which tell the driver "Joe, slow down a bit", or something like that.

The travel card system has proved immensely popular. For people to be able to pay one fare and travel on one ticket on British Rail, on the Underground and on the buses is a wonderful scheme. British Rail have told me that they would like to see this scheme extended, certainly to their suburban services south of the Thames. I also believe that this would help to reduce fiddling. The sums quoted are guestimates. On the Southern Region they used to talk about £3 million or so a year being fiddled. My own belief is that over the Greater London area as a whole the amount is probably £10 million or £15 million.

I am concerned about one or two other matters, but the main question that we must ask ourselves is: will this Bill meet the genuine needs of Greater London? I am sure that the noble Lord the Minister will say, "Yes"; but from these Benches I have to say that we believe the answer will be. "No".

6.33 p.m.

Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove

My Lords, so far we have had a long debate and a long series of very important Statements. Therefore. I shall endeavour not to delay the House too long. I am also sure that this Bill will be greatly discussed in Committee. It affects many of us. for from wherever we may originate or wherever we happen to go at the weekends, nevertheless we use London Transport throughout the week. Therefore, practically all of us are thorough experts in the whole question of London Transport.

The noble Earl. Lord Attlee, has made a number of very important points. He raised the matter of empty buses. I think that the noble Earl will agree that his speech was directed towards the transport maxim that, if one can get a seat at a busy time on any transport undertaking, that undertaking is really in trouble. It means that everyone is going in the one direction and, therefore, inevitably the bus or the Tube train is going in the other direction. The noble Earl was absolutely correct, and I am glad that we shall have his support on many Committee points.

The noble Earl said that the Bill contains far too many unanswered questions; he said that he has spoken to a number of transport experts and those involved in transport who believe that there are too many imponderables for them to be able to give a reliable opinion on the Bill as it stands.

The other matter which is axiomatic to transport is that the two most single important aspects of transport are the level of fares and reliability. Reliability, particularly for buses, is inevitably tied up with much wider questions than merely the mechanics of the bus or the quality of the driver and is a matter which I hope we can discuss in a few moments.

I do not think there is any doubt that London Transport is improving. It has certainly greatly improved since I came to know it with any intimacy as a traveller some 20 years ago. When I first came to London the Northern line was a joke, the reliability of the escalators and many of the other parts of the system were, to say the least, problematic, whether one was attempting to walk through the turnstiles or use an escalator. All those things have been improved.

If one uses something regularly, it sometimes takes a little while to realise that, because one has been inconvenienced for so long, things are now improving. This is the point which the noble Baroness. Lady Lane-Fox, made when she spoke about the problems of the disabled. She said that she was older than some of the people who are disabled and has experienced the problems that bit longer. She said that she could see improvements; but, quite rightly, she said that the younger disabled were impatient at the rest of us not spending a great deal more in order to speed up the improvements.

I have seen a great many improvements. When the Minister replies I hope that he will be able to guarantee that there will be no curtailment of the Dial-a-Ride service, and that wherever possible there will be an endeavour to standardise the system. Although it is good that some of this should be left to people who are willing to go a bit further, if this is to be paid for separately by boroughs, the London Regional Transport Executive should at least set minimum standards. If boroughs wish to go beyond that, they can improve the position considerably.

While the idea of all buses being adapted for the disabled is very desirable, it would greatly cut across the very point which the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, made when she said that it was important that there should be cost-effectiveness even for these buses. Therefore, although we should not stint this, a large extension and a proper use of the Dial-a-Ride service is the correct way in which to proceed.

The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, speaking for the Alliance Party, made many comments about the Bill with which most of us on this side of the House are agreed. Again, I think that we can rely on him for contributions in what promises to be a very construc-tive Committee stage. The speech of my noble friend Lady Denington will be well worth reading. Perhaps the history of London Transport should be written up more fully. I am not trying to make party political points here, but I think that transport has always been regarded as a bit of a Cinderella by most parties. Ministers for Transport have always had great trouble in getting money, not only for London Transport, but for transport as a whole. Therefore, the work that the GLC did from 1973 onwards was work with which we should be very pleased. There is no doubt that London Transport has generally improved over the past few years.

When he introduced the Bill the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, spoke solemnly and seriously, in keeping with what I believe is the importance of the subject. He was trying to introduce a Bill of great importance to a very large number of people. If the noble Lord had read the speech of his right honourable friend the Secretary of State in another place, he would see that it was a question of chalk and cheese. The Secretary of State seemed to relish his destructive and dramatic role in destroying London Transport. I know the Secretary of State extremely well. We met on many instances when I was in the other place, and I think he takes great relish in this. He has almost a one-track mind on the whole question of privatisation. I was surprised when he talked about Whitehall knowing best. It was probably because he could not find any other solution that was more palatable to him. He had to get away from London Transport.

In fact, the noble Lord who opened let slip a few phrases that could have come from the Secretary of State. He said, "They have gone on running the Tubes and buses regardless". He said it almost in that way, although perhaps not as dramatically as I tried to say it. He also said, "The Government had to take control of London Transport". They were almost the type of words that would be used by his right honourable friend the Secretary of State. The sort of thing that is left hanging by the Secretary of State is privatisation, where we are left with a big blank. What does he mean by privatisation? What is going to be privatised? While we shall later discuss this in Committee, we are entitled to get general parameters about it in a debate such as this.

The sort of thing we have been told about—although I believe that it has been denied—is that routes like the Heathrow to central London line would be offered for privatisation; certain of the Green Line buses would be offered for privatisation; perhaps the dockside line, when it comes, would be offered for privatisation. If this is the case we should be given a general indication—obviously we cannot ask now for details—by the noble Lord when he winds up as to where the boundaries of privatisation will be. We should also be told about all the other things that noble Lords and noble Baronesses have spoken about tonight; the question of concessionary fares; the question of transferability of fares—and not just concerning British Rail, because we are dividing even more. If we start privatising we do not merely have British Rail and London Transport; we have them and many others who are running various services. The Minister should give us some idea of the general thinking of his right honourable friend as to whether there will be transferability to these private services when they come.

The point that I take most sorely from the Minister who opened—and the Secretary of State referred to it in his Second Reading speech to a lesser degree than did the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne—concerns the report of the Select Committee on the nationalised industries. My noble friend Lord Underhill indicated that I had been a member of that committee, which is absolutely true. That committee looked at London Transport.

The important thing to remember is that the report was not on London Transport—and this is of key importance; it was a report on transport in London. There is a clear distinction between transport in London and London Transport, which is what we consider to be the London Underground, the buses and perhaps the green buses with a bit of British Rail thrown in. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has read the report. We spent a great deal of time discussing some of the points mentioned here. We discussed the streets of London, the planning of London, and the rights of transport in London. In other words, we were not talking merely about the mechanics of London transport, and that is important. We were discussing transport in London; the whole of London.

I do not expect the suggestions made in the Select Committee report to be all totally taken up by any one Minister. But when you get a committee, an all-party committee, with even a preponderance of Conservative members—and I think we were all reasonably hardworking—and they produce a report, I think it should be looked at. Instead of which this Bill has plucked out one or two of the lesser ideas from the report, distorted them and regurgitated them in the form in which we have them today.

We set ourselves the question: how should we deal with transport in London? We decided that there ought to be set up a metropolitan transport authority—not one controlled by the Minister; appointed by the Minister—but we all emphasised that the Secretary of State should make the majority of members on the authority the directly-elected representatives of the people. As my noble friend Lord Underhill said, Paris, which has arguably one of the best transport systems in the world, has decided at this stage to start municipalising its transport undertaking and give away much more power.

We discussed the policy objectives required for London transport as a whole; the targets, objectives and the whole system. We discussed the appointment of a London Transport executive, which would be the management. The metropolitan transport authority would be the political arm, and the executive would be the managerial arm doing the day-to-day work, closely intermingled with the metropolitan transport authority. We discussed the development of action programmes—and this is important—for roads and for public transport infrastructure and investment. We discussed approval of long-term investment for principal road networks and for main public transport operators in London. We made a big point of the fact that London is not just the Underground and the buses.

I am a Scot, and come from a city, Glasgow, that—although I am always criticised by our civil engineer—has probably more roads per head of the population than we need; but I believe that London, on the other hand, as regards the amount of money spent in the last 20 or 30 years on its road system, has been quite badly served. There are a lot of reasons for this. We shall go into this, and I am sure that the noble Lord knows a great many of the reasons.

We also considered that you could not look at London transport unless you discussed things like traffic management policies, and the role of the police. We were urged by the London business associations that they needed more traffic wardens—those terribly unpopular people—because one of the important and interesting points I discovered from the London business community is that so much of central London is now so automated with complex machinery that it is vital that important service people get through at particular times or there is real chaos. The responsible business community in London are anxious that the streets should be kept as clear as possible. In other words, they want as much parking off the streets as they can get.

We talked also about a survey and study of needs and demands, and the need to look at the main functions that such an authority would have. I have said all these things not because this committee produced its report on tablets of stone but merely to show that we looked at a great many things. We looked at other countries and other cities in Britain and the world. We looked at the history of London Transport. We met people using London Transport at all levels and for all purposes, and people using the roads of London as well as the public transport system, and we produced this report. I feel disappointed and offended that a Bill such as this should be published, which tries to claim that attention had been paid to a report such as the one I have endeavoured to describe.

This Bill is trying to solve a very simple, narrow problem instead of considering the problem in a much larger way. As other speakers have said today, I believe that in the end the Bill will not work. In the next few years we shall be starting again with another Bill. I believe it will be even more costly because to save face, if a Conservative government are still in power, the Government will want to pour more money into the infrastructure of the London transport system. While we shall be dealing with this Bill at some length in Committee, at this stage we have a great opportunity to do something about London Transport, in co-operation—and it must be in co-operation—with the elected representatives of the people of London. A great opportunity has been lost. Most of us who have spoken in the debate will try to change and improve the bill in Committee, but it would be far better if the Bill had never been born.

6.51 p.m.

Lord Lucas of Chilworth

My Lords, let me start by expressing some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, with my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox and the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, since each of them was interrupted. The House will accept that the interruptions were of great seriousness and importance. Nevertheless, it must have been somewhat offputting for them. Although each of them told me that they had other engagements I am sorry that they are not in their usual places this evening. I have spoken of the seriousness and the importance of the subject matter of the Statements, but I have to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, did in his opening remarks, that the Bill before us is equally as important. Lord Tordoff specifically mentioned that when he referred to the opening remarks of my noble friend Lord Trefgarne.

It is customary to say that we have had a long and interesting debate on the matter. I should like to begin somewhat differently. To me the debate this afternoon and this evening has indicated a number of areas: first, ideology and, secondly, detail. There is little that I can do, I suspect, about the former; but there is something I am quite sure that I shall be able to do with your Lordships' House on both sides about the detail as we move along.

First, I return for a minute or two to the theme on which my noble friend opened the debate. London is a unique capital city. It is quite different from the capital cities which were referred to earlier: those on the continent, those in America, and so on. So we have to look at schemes and systems which meet that uniqueness. London has a public transport system of far greater relative importance than almost anywhere else in the country and almost anywhere else on the continent. For those who work in the inner London boroughs public transport is the main mode of travel for more than two-thirds of the journeys made. Between seven o'clock and ten o'clock in the morning passengers arriving in Central London number 293,000 by Underground, 391,000 by rail and 99,000 by bus. That puts it into perspective. The last figure, in case the noble Lord would wish to challenge, is 235,000 by private motorcar. It was the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, who brought this out in his remarks about British Rail.

We pay dearly for these services. In spite of some of the reductions over the past year or so, fares on London Transport are still higher in real terms than when the GLC took over in 1970. As an indication, if one took a 1970 index of 100. we find that in April of this year the figures for the bus have moved up to 123; indeed, just two years ago the figure was 165. The Underground figure moved up to 136 in April this year. Over that same period the total subsidy to London Transport rose from £6,500,000 to £360 million. My noble friend Lord Trefgarne added to that the subsidy that goes to British Rail, amounting, as he said, to something over £500 million.

Whoever we are, whether we are fare-paying passengers, ratepayers or taxpayers, we are paying a good deal more than we ever used to. Both the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, and the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, raised this point. I ask—rhetorically I admit—who pays for these increases? It is certainly not the fare box; it is somebody else. When the noble Baroness talked about the electorate she asked, "Is it not right that the electorate in the boroughs should have some say in all these matters?" Sixty-two per cent, of this kind of subsidy figure, is found from people who do not have a vote.

Baroness Denington

My Lords, I might say that that is a defect of the rating system. That is what we from this side of the House are asking to have a study about and to have it revised.

Lord Lucas of Chilworth

That, my Lords, is another matter. I shall be happy to debate it when we come to the appropriate clauses. It is a very different matter, but whatever matter it is it is a lot of money.

Lord Molloy

My Lords, will the noble Lord explain something that I do not understand?

Noble Lords

Order!

Lord Molloy

My Lords, I am seeking information. The Minister said that so much is paid by people who do not have a vote. Who are they?

Lord Lucas of Chilworth

My Lords, they are the commercial enterprises, the business houses in the area. I think I should get on with my speech; we have a Committee stage and I should be happy to take these points on board.

Lord Molloy

My Lords—

Lord Lucas of Chilworth

My Lords, the noble Lord asked a simple question, and I have given a simple answer and also a truthful answer.

Faced as we are with the evidence of this financial burden, and an increasing financial burden, we are entitled to look carefully for the underlying causes. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, mentioned this. As my noble friend Lord Trefgarne said, external events have played a part as they have done for public transport services elsewhere. Yet we cannot overlook the fact that all has not been well with London Transport itself. As an example of this I looked no further than the recently published report of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission on London Transport's bus maintenance operations. What it reported was not good and it was certainly not reassuring.

As an illustration, I picked out a couple of points. Thirty-nine per cent. of the buses subjected to spot inspection in the first nine months of 1983 by my department's vehicle examiners were issued with prohibition notices; a position perhaps not too different from the reference made to the past by the noble Baroness, Lady Denington. The report went on to say that in October 1983 London Transport's main stores for bus maintenance represented 37 weeks' cover against a budgeted target of 29 weeks. Thus we had some 30 per cent. more spare parts available than was budgeted for. Again, a somewhat different story. More generally the report said that London Transport's main works at Aldenham and Chiswick, which together employ some 2,500 staff, were found to be too large for London Transport's current needs.

London Transport has stated that substantial savings are obtainable. Some £65 million a year was identified in the recent three-year plan to the end of the period 1986-87. Although the noble Lord, Lord Underhill. often quotes reports, so far as I recall tonight he did not quote anything from London Transport's three-year plan. I am going to quote two things that they say. The role of the railways in providing for radial, line haul and central London journeys will be developed, and the role of buses concentrated on suburban trips, feeder services and specific markets as well as local movements throughout London. Market decline will be positively attacked by improving reliability, keeping real fares levels stable, simplifying access and ticketing, and providing better information —a point that my noble friend Lord Teviot mentioned. They say that all kinds of fraud should be reduced—and I want to return to that later—and both staff and passengers protected from violence.

So London Transport are able to identify many of the areas in which they know that positive action must be taken. We believe that under the present arrange-ments such savings and such actions as I have described are unlikely to be realised, since those who currently have the financial and policy control of London Transport appear to believe that London Transport exists sometimes more for the benefit of its own employees than of the passengers who use it.

A Noble Lord

Oh!

Lord Lucas of Chilworth

My Lords, I thought that that might provoke comment from noble Lords opposite. I should like to hope that these remarks will not be misunderstood. I would not seek this evening to argue that London Transport in the near future could be run without subsidy. Nor am 1 saying that social service elements in London Transport operations should be sacrificed on the altar of commercial principles. Those of your Lordships who are really interested will be reading the debate tomorrow. I remind your Lordships what my noble friend had to say about concessionary fares, about caring and the need to look after the elderly and disabled. And we mean it!

The noble Baroness, Lady Denington, said she would like to see free services for old and disabled people. That goes against the general philosophy which her party has always maintained; that it is for local authorities to determine the need of the elderly and disabled in their areas. We, indeed, hope they will do that. I say again that, at the end, whether it is free or whether it is supported centrally or additionally by local authorities, somebody has to pay. In London alone that is now amounting to £65 million. Somebody has to pay. Is it out of the fare box, or is it the taxpayer or the ratepayer? There has to be a balance.

Lord Mulley

My Lords,—

Lord Lucas of Chilworth

My Lords, I think I—

Lord Mulley

My Lords, if the noble Lord does not wish to give way, I will not press the point. I was going to say that the noble Lord is incorrect in saying that in the metropolitan areas it is Labour Party policy that the local authorities should pay. The scheme is uniform for all the areas concerned.

Lord Lucas of Chilworth

My Lords, what I said was that the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, will remember that, as regards the responsibility for looking after the needs of the aged and disabled, it has always been the policy of the party opposite that it should be the responsibility of the local authorities. It is for them to determine. That is what I said. Nothing more.

I move on, if I may, to Clause 2 of the Bill, which states quite clearly that London Regional Transport must have due regard to the transport needs of Greater London. Furthermore, it will be its financial duty, far from requiring to make a profit in the commercial sense, merely to break even after grant. In this way the Bill makes it quite clear that there is this important social element in the provision of public transport; and a continuing subsidy will be necessary if these needs are to be met.

This is not incompatible with a more businesslike approach to the running of London Transport. There are questions that have to be raised and to be answered. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, asked a few such questions. Given that subsidies will be needed, we have to ask first, these questions. Where is this need for subsidy being generated? Where are the loss-making services? What can be done to improve financial performance without penalising the passenger? What can be done to improve the engineering service? And there are a host of others. The Government believe that the answers to these questions have not been found because the right incentives and right structure have been lacking.

This is the reason why the Bill contains, in Clause 4, a requirement for bus and underground operations to be split into separate companies. There needs to be a clear and proper picture of what each part of the system is costing, including its management overheads. One of the ways of increasing efficiency is the encouragement of competition. Noble Lords may read into "competition" privatisation. So be it! Among the numbers of things that I would be looking for in competition are the Clause 3(2) licensing arrangements, the chartering and the use of other operators described by my noble friend.

The noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, asked if I could be a little more forthcoming about this. I envisage offers for tender for the supply of cleaning services, of garaging services, of engineering services, of some particular services, perhaps the running of special services for the disabled. It is in these areas perhaps that another organisation may be better placed. Clause 44 breaks new ground, allowing operators, if they wish or if they are unable to reach agreement with London Regional Transport, to apply to the traffic commissioners for a road service licence to operate independently of LRT. The licence must be granted unless the commissioners can show that it is against the public interest to do so.

The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, and the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, both spoke of the mysterious role of competition. We do believe in principle that this will dilute the statutory monopoly that London Transport has held for 50 years. Equally, the Government do not think it right to exclude competitive services from London on principle. They believe that the introduction of such services can be a valuable addition to the totality of services that are provided for the benefit of London travellers.

Before I finish I want to say something about planning but I think that this might be a reasonable time to reply to some of the specific questions that have been asked. There have been very many, I think all noble Lords would agree. If I do not get through all of them this evening I will certainly read Hansardtomorrow and provide more answers before we move to the next stage.

The noble Lord, Lord Hawke, asked of my noble friend at the end of his speech: "When is the appointed day?" The appointed day is just as soon as possible after Royal Assent—in a matter of days; because, as each day goes by without this Bill, thousands of pounds are, in our view, squandered and wasted.

The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, asked about the Essex county councillors who felt that they should be represented on the London Regional Transport Board. This is a business operation, not a political operation. The managers must be people who have the right kind of qualities to run professionally a huge and complex business operation. If the county councillor he has in mind has these qualities, I am quite sure my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will be glad to hear. The noble Lord also said that OMO (one-man-operated buses) could not work in central London. The answer really is that it is for London Transport, and not the GLC, to determine who runs the buses. They want to increase one-man operations from the current 53 per cent. level to at least 65 per cent. That in itself is going to save £6 million a year; but it is the GLC and its nominees at the present moment who stop this.

The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, suggested that there were inadequate consumer arrangements. No doubt, we shall discuss consumer representation when we get to that stage in Committee. I can say tonight that the arrangements as represented in the Bill are the result of extensive consultation with all the existing consumer bodies, and they have strongly supported the provisions in the Bill.

My noble friend Lady Lane-Fox spoke warmly—and I am most grateful to her for what she had to say—about my department and about what has been done—though perhaps not specifically within this Bill—for the disabled. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, who endorsed so much of what my noble friend said. But we are disinclined to put too much into this Bill because, as my noble friend said, so much has been achieved in London and around the country without a specific statutory duty. We would rather leave that position as it is. However, a firm commitment has already been given in another place that London Regional Transport will be directed to develop their own vehicles and infrastructure with the needs of disabled persons in mind. In addition, there is a requirement for a statement to be included in the annual report on the progress made in meeting the needs of disabled people. Both the LRT Board and the London Regional Passengers' Consultative Committee will include a member charged with looking after the interests of the disabled. My noble friend asked me to confirm that.

The noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, and my noble friend Lord Teviot both spoke about fraud. Let me say straight away that the great improvement which London Transport have made in the reduction of the deficit has been made by tackling fraud—which has been of a disastrous nature—from both sides of the counter. I accept that. This has concerned us so much that during the passage of this Bill in another place we have given this further consideration, and it may be that during the Committee stage we may wish to bring in an amendment to see what can be done about that. Specifically, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, asked why there was to be a power to transfer functions between London Regional Transport and British Rail. Clause 46 does in fact reproduce some existing legislation. It is unlikely to be used but it could be useful: for example, if a line is transferred from one body to the other.

The noble Lords, Lord Underhill and Lord Tordoff, and the noble Baroness, Lady Denington, have all commented on London Regional Transport being cut off from strategic planning. This has gone through the speeches of several other noble Lords as well. I want to deal with the planning regime: namely, the planning framework in which London Regional Transport will be operating. In Clause 1 the Bill removes the GLC's overall responsibility for transport planning in London. In its place there must be some kind of strategic assessment of London's transport needs. But the view which was fashionable in the 1960s, that as many things as possible must be co-ordinated and integrated within a single body has—I think rightly—been discredited. Big is no longer beautiful. One might almost say: "Small is sweeter".

Here I should say, first, that the Government accept that there are legitimate links between public transport planning on the one hand, and strategic development planning on the other hand. During the Committee stage we propose to table amendments to Clause 7 in order to give effect to this by requiring London Regional Transport to have regard to development plans in the areas in which it operates.

Next, there is the general relationship between LRT's plans and general transport planning in London. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has already made clear the lines along which this will develop. He has said that he will be responsible for setting guidelines for London Regional Transport and for British Rail. He is already responsible for a large part of the strategic network of trunk roads for London. When the GLC is abolished London's network will be tidied up and he will issue general guidance, in consultation with the London boroughs, about major traffic management policies. Under Clause 7, London Regional Transport will be charged with producing a three-yearly strategy statement. They will be required to consult British Rail, the London Regional Passengers' Committee and the local authorities, so maintaining links with planning, highway and traffic authorities. This will ensure a co-ordinated approach to transport policy.

As regards the detailed processes of planning and consultation within London Regional Transport itself the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, referred to them very strongly indeed. I have already mentioned the Clause 7 statement which will be published with full consultation with all those concerned. Besides this, the Bill contains a number of proposals which are designed to ensure the accountability of LRT to its regional community. Under Clause 29 LRT will be required to publish an annual business plan. Under Clause 30 there is a statutory requirement to inform local authorities and the passengers' committee each year about their plans for fares and services. Under Clause 34 an annual report will have to be laid before Parliament; and under Clause 13 there will be an annual order on the ratepayers' levy which, as my noble friend Lord Trefgarne said, will be subject to the affirmative procedure. In addition, Clause 43 requires LRT to consult all the relevant local authorities when it wishes significantly to alter the existing pattern of bus services. Additionally, there is to be the new passengers' committee which the Government expect to be a powerful voice in the securing of better public transport facilities throughout London.

I believe that these proposals amply refute any claim that Londoners will be losing their ability to influence those who provide them with their public transport. I believe also that they refute the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, that London Transport will be under the diktat of the Minister. As my noble friend said, there are 84 London Members of Parliament, who will have the opportunity of reviewing and debating the operation of their transport system.

The Government in this Bill have ensured that London Regional Transport will be subject to the most comprehensive statutory regime of planning and consultation. There are already welcome signs that the professional managers in London Transport are keen to show that London can once more have a public transport system to be proud of, if they can only be given a policy and a financial framework which lays down clear objectives and then lets them get on with managing a transport business.

In this Bill we bring London Regional Transport and British Rail within the same political direction; and the omens are good. Indeed noble Lords will remember that only last autumn my right honourable friend the Secretary of State gave the new chairman of British Rail a clear set of objectives, and he will do the same for the chairman of LRT. British Rail are working successfully to those objectives and we want to see London Regional Transport going down the same road. Under this Bill, I believe that we will. My Lords, I commend the Bill to your Lordships.

On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.