§ 2.48 p.m.
§ Lord UnderhillMy Lords, in the absence due to travelling difficulties of my noble friend Lady Fisher of Rednal, at her request I beg leave to ask Her Majesty's Government:
When they expect London Transport to have all its Underground escalators in full running service.
§ Lord Brabazon of TaraMy Lords, it would be unrealistic to expect all of London Underground's escalators to be in full service all of the time. The need to carry out essential scheduled maintenance means that a small percentage must be unavailable to passengers for that reason. But London Underground has made very good progress in improving escalator reliability since 1989 when the Government set them an escalator availability target of 86 per cent. to be reached by April 1992. London Underground Limited has in fact already exceeded this target with 88 per cent. availability. New targets are to be set next year.
§ Lord UnderhillMy Lords, before asking the Minister two questions I should like him to know how grateful I was to receive a letter from the managing director of London Underground clarifying some of the points which I raised in a supplementary question on 16th May. I believe the Minister also received a copy of that letter.
Has the Minister seen a commentary on escalator performance over the 12 months period ending October 1991, including the performance statistics for period 7? With permission, I shall read this short commentary: 1015
Escalator availability decreased slightly this period due to an increase in the time spent on defective escalators which outweighed the decrease in maintenance time".
§ Lord UnderhillMy Lords, I was asking the Minister whether he had seen a quotation and therefore it was necessary for me to tell him what the quotation was about.
§ Lord UnderhillMy Lords, it is not up to me to say "Order" but I believe that the noble Lord the Government Chief Whip should do so. Has not this work on defective escalators and also the escalator programme been affected by the restructuring of London Transport's investment programme during the past year, about which the London Regional Passengers Committee has expressed some concern? Is the noble Lord aware that, in order to avoid this diversion of investment, the Labour Party has made a commitment to ring-fence moneys devoted to the escalator programme? Have the Government any intention of doing likewise?
§ Lord Brabazon of TaraMy Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his remarks regarding the letter from London Underground which he received in response to a Question in the House on 16th May. Noble Lords will no doubt be encouraged to know—this partly answers the noble Lord's question—that since that Question was asked in May escalator availability has again gone up, to 88 per cent. Credit should be given to London Underground where credit is due.
The noble Lord referred to ring-fencing moneys to be spent on escalator repairs or renewals. I do not think we have plans to do that. I know that the extra money available as a result of the latest grant settlement means that London Underground is likely to be able to spend an extra £10 million on escalator refurbishment in 1992–93. As I said in my original Answer, we have set a target for escalator availability to which we expect London Underground to keep, and we shall be setting a new one in April.
§ Lord TordoffMy Lords, nevertheless is the noble Lord aware that posters are going up in London Underground saying that three escalators are to be taken out of action at Victoria in January 1992 and will be out of action for nine months? Passengers are advised to avoid using Victoria Underground station. Does the noble Lord agree that that does not seem to be a proper use of resources?
§ Lord Brabazon of TaraMy Lords, I cannot comment on individual stations—
§ Lord Brabazon of TaraBecause there are a great many of them and because I do not happen to run London Underground. I shall certainly look into the point. Obviously, if they are being taken out for that long it means that a major job needs to be done on them. I should have thought that the House would welcome such major investment.