London Underground

HL Deb 08 February 1994 vol 551 cc1550-64

6.20 p.m.

Lord Ezra rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they consider that the funding of London Underground is sufficient to maintain the system and prevent further deterioration of its physical assets.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, on 8th July 1992, I asked whether sufficient was being done to maintain and improve the underground railway system of London. I have no hesitation in raising the issue again some 18 months later and I am grateful to those noble Lords who will be speaking later.

When I originally raised this issue, I drew attention to the ageing of the assets of the Underground and to the accumulated lack of investment which had prevented those assets from being adequately maintained and refurbished. I took some comfort, however, from the announcement in the Autumn Statement of 1991 that higher levels of funding would be provided. I asked the Minister, the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, for an assurance that, those higher levels of funding announced for London Transport last year —that was in 1991— were more than just a pre-election boost and that they will be sustained at the level necessary to allow the essential work to be properly planned and executed over the years". —[Official Report, 8/7/92; col. 1249.] The reply that I got was that the Government were working with the Underground to produce a strategy for the next 10 years that would bring about the decent modern metro that we all wanted to see.

The 1991 Autumn Statement provided that £634 million would be available for the core business in 1994–95. Regrettably, this was substantially modified in the 1992 Autumn Statement and the corresponding amount now likely to be available is £448 million, which represents a 30 per cent. reduction. Perhaps I should add that this issue has been referred to many times since.

The Government have maintained, in answers to Questions raised in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and others, that the funding levels now represent a record. Whether they are a record or not is not the main issue. The crucial issue is whether the funds are adequate for the task, and clearly they are not. Given its replacement value, the Underground system requires, in constant prices, £250 million per annum to keep it in a stable, non-deteriorating condition. However, over the past 30 years the average has been about £170 million at constant values. This shortfall has created a backlog that has raised the amount needed merely to maintain the existing system in its now unsatisfactory condition to an annual investment of about £600 million per annum. Thus, while grant levels are generally higher than in earlier years, they are inadequate to deal with the backlog.

As I have stated, for 30 years there has been under-investment in the assets of the London Underground. In many cases, these assets are now life-expired and increasingly unreliable. Let us consider the track situation: 30 per cent. of the track is in an unacceptable state (this is up from 22 per cent. only five years ago so it is deteriorating rapidly) and many stretches are subject to speed restrictions to protect safety. There are currently 44 times more speed restrictions on the London Underground than on the Paris Metro and 15 times more restrictions than on the New York subway, which itself is generally regarded as an ageing system. Embankment slips have doubled in the past five years and the number of broken rails is up by 85 per cent. For example, a landslip at Burnt Oak closed part of the Northern Line for two weeks last months. That is just one recent example.

Let me turn next to signals. The average age of signals on the network is 30 years and that is 10 years older than in either Paris or New York. Failure rates due to signals are 50 per cent. higher than in those cities. The number of failures is up by 30 per cent. over the past five years.

Pumps are an important part of the system. Three million gallons of water a day seep into the Underground as the water table rises. This water has to be pumped out to enable the system to work. However, half the 635 pumps need replacing. One-third of incidents causing serious delays in 1992–93 involved flooding. For example, in May 1992 the Central Line service was suspended at the line's west end for six hours and in November of that year Gants Hill was closed for seven hours. Those are random examples.

I have dealt with only some of the many categories of asset forming part of the London Underground. Many other instances of failing assets could be cited; for example, no one will have forgotten the Central Line power failure of November 1993, which was severely exacerbated by the age of the cabling.

This situation makes it abundantly clear that the present funding of the London Underground is inadequate. In 1992–93 the Underground invested £767 million in its existing network. In 1993–94 the figure was £558 million. Next year, 1994–95, it will be £470 million. These figures include government grants and sums generated by London Transport. The Autumn Statement of 1991 indicated that the Government intended investment in the Underground to be maintained at the 1992–93 level for some years. But, as I have shown, this was subject to a cut of 30 per cent. in the ensuing Autumn Statement. London Underground has done much to improve the performance of its management and staff in very difficult circumstances and should be congratulated on that. However, with inadequate levels of investment, failures of assets will increasingly cause delays to passengers, disrupting London's business life and doing much damage to London's image abroad.

A situation of this sort cannot be put right overnight. But what is certainly required is a more adequate level of funding over a period ahead—say, for at least 10 years. I have a suggestion to put to the Government. In the 1993 Autumn Statement the Government indicated that funding of £541 million would be available for the core business in 1996–97. The management of London Underground estimates that this could imply investment of £650 million (including its own resources) in the existing network. At this level of investment, the backlog of neglect could begin to be dealt with and improvements made. That would be in contrast to the present situation in which a continuing decline in the assets has to be managed to minimise disruption.

If the Government are serious about London's status as a world city, capable of attracting international investment and creating wealth for the UK economy, they should consider advancing that level of investment by one year (to 1995–96), which is a modest proposal, in order to allow a start to be made on delivering a decently modern metro, something to which they say they are committed. That level of investment in real terms should be sustained for at least 10 years. What the Underground has suffered from in the past has not just been a generally inadequate level of funding, but substantial annual variations as well. That uncertainty has prevented any form of effective planning. The Government now have an opportunity to put that right and to revert to the intentions indicated in the Autumn Statement of 1991. I hope that in replying the Minister will give us the assurance that London badly needs.

6.31 p.m.

Lady Gardner of Parkes

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, for letting me know that this debate was to take place as I might otherwise have missed it. I was lucky to arrive here in time because when I telephoned to ask what time the debate would start I was told that it was thought that it would be about 7 o'clock. I just made it. It is a most interesting topic. We all know that London Transport has been going now for 60 years. I agree with the noble Lord's comments that the Underground system's ageing infrastructure is worrying.

I have been actively involved in dealing with London Transport's Private Bills in your Lordships' House. There was one Bill relating to safety measures which imposed a great additional financial burden on London Transport. That was after the King's Cross fire. It had to provide easy exits from stations. We had a great debate about balancing safety against the preservation of historic buildings. Sometimes it was necessary to make an opening in an historic building that we should have preferred not to have seen touched.

I was involved also in the Jubilee Line. I am pleased that that is now going ahead. The Bill took a long time to go through all its stages in both Houses of Parliament. The project seems to have taken an eternity to get going afterwards. It is now happening. I have one great unhappiness in relation to that project: I hear that a station will not be constructed at Greenwich. I still hope that we will hear good news about that and that some means will be found to finance it. The financing of Greenwich station was the subject of an agreement between, I believe, British Gas and London Underground Limited.

I am interested not just in London's transport but in tourism in London. Greenwich is an area in which many people live and work. It is also a tremendous tourist attraction. I have no personal interest in Greenwich but I have taken my Australian visitors there repeatedly over the years. It makes no sense to have the Jubilee Line extension without a station at Greenwich. Greenwich is not an easy place to get to, but it is worth a visit and it could become a greatly enhanced tourist attraction.

London Underground Limited is always short of money. It is having to delay many schemes. It is having to delay the revitalisation of the Northern Line. The power failure which the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, mentioned, and which we all read so much about, could, ironically, have happened to the most modern metro system. It was caused by a small break in a cable. The cable was 70 years old. That power failure affected 20,000 people. London Underground Limited handled the matter well at the time. No accidents occurred and no injuries were caused to people during that failure. However, a great deal of inconvenience was caused and it is estimated that LUL lost £2 million.

London Underground Limited has ideas about how its money should be spent. It has listed key projects with which it is proceeding and for which the money has been earmarked. All the existing rolling stock on the Central Line will be replaced. There will be 85 new trains by 1985. The programme is costing £750 million. Twenty of those trains are now in service. There will be new signals which will allow shorter intervals between trains. That is important at times of congestion. LUL is having a station fire safety programme; engineering works on the Metropolitan Line; station refurbishment on the southern section of the Northern Line, which is needed; the preliminary works now being undertaken on the Jubilee Line extension; the Piccadilly Line will have refurbished trains; part of the Northern Line's rolling stock will be refurbished; and there will be new escalators at Bank, Leicester Square and Green Park. However, other projects such as the new escalators at Notting Hill and other stations will have to be put on hold because there is not enough money for them.

The underground system is a little like the health service in that whatever money there is it is never enough, because the system could always be greatly improved and updated. When I visit Australia I see a brand new underground system. It is attractive and practical, and it is not carrying anything like the same number of people. Here, congestion on the Underground at peak hours is a major factor. I come in on the Piccadilly Line from where I live in London. We could often use one of those small Japanese men with a bar to push people into the train during the morning peak hours. I have seen that done in Tokyo, where the trains run almost continuously. It is a traditional practice. We, too, could use a man to push the passengers into the trains. It is difficult to carry the number of passengers that LUL does, and whose passengers are well satisfied with the system.

Of course, we would like the trains to be less congested but without flexitime and the staggering of hours of work I do not see how LUL could increase the number of passengers carried on trains that are already full to capacity. More money would be an advantage. I served on the GLC and we took over responsibility for London Transport. We never had enough money for it even though we were precepting on all the people of London. There was always a shortage of money. The system was always in deficit. LUL is to be congratulated on how well it has managed its fare structure, on the service it is providing, and on managing to put money into new projects and improvements.

I am also pleased that LUL is interested in the public's attitude to it and on what it should spend money. It has announced a consultation period which will last from February to the end of March. It had a similar consultation period in 1991 during which it received 1,700 replies. It would like many more replies this time. Among the questions it is asking are: how can Underground services be enhanced and how much of the problem is caused by congestion? In view of my earlier remarks, the question about congestion is an interesting one. It is asking also which new lines and infrastructure should be particular priorities. It is a good thing for the public to comment on such matters because it is easy for planners sitting in a remote building to decide that their priority might be project A whereas the priority of those using the service might be project B.

I do not for one moment underestimate the need for more money, but even more important than more money is the knowledge of how much money one is to receive and when, and to have that information for a longer period ahead. One of the big problems facing London Transport—I include LUL in London Transport—is that in planning major contracts, and everything it is doing is major, it has to be able to plan a long way ahead and to know that it has the money not just for today's work but for the following year and the year after that. It is essential to know that the money is guaranteed for three to five years ahead when one is planning a project of the magnitude of the London transport system. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, for introducing the subject tonight and for mentioning it to me.

6.40 p.m.

Lord Jay

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, for raising this crucial issue. I support his cogent case for a more adequate allocation of government funds in support of urgently needed maintenance, renewals and improvements for London Underground. The Government can no longer deny that they have made cuts. The facts and figures are on record. The allocation for the present year, which the Government laid down in 1991, was cut in 1992 by 30 per cent. In the 1993 Autumn Statement the external financial allocation for London Transport as a whole was cut from £880 million to £720 million.

It is essential to get the priorities right for transport in London. The urgent priority is to overcome the immediate arrears of maintenance and renewals on the Underground. They are causing serious and chronic delays to millions of people, mainly those travelling to and from work. Daily we are told—when we can hear the communicators on an Underground station—that a specific delay is due to a points failure, signalling faults, lack of trains or lack of drivers. Escalator failures are a particularly exasperating interlude and can be serious for the elderly or handicapped.

My memory goes back only to 1917, but I believe that delays on this scale never occurred before the Government took over London Transport in 1984–85. They did not occur to this extent in 1940 during the months of the Blitz. They are plainly due to sustained under-maintenance and under-manning during the past 10 years since this Government took control. At their worst, they can threaten safety and on one or two occasions they have done so.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, that London Transport's management cannot be seriously blamed for the delays. London Transport has continuously pressed the Government for more adequate maintenance funds. One can say cautiously that, despite the shortage of funds, there have been recent signs of improvement in services. However, 2.5 million people travel every day on London Underground. Consequently, any £1 spent on eliminating such delays would achieve more than £1 spent in any other way on transport in London; indeed, on transport anywhere in the country.

There is interesting evidence of a possibly unconscious bias in the Department of Transport. In estimating the need for a motorway, high points are given for the saving of time by travellers, and even higher points if they are thought to be high-earning travellers. On the other hand, no corresponding weight is given for eliminating loss of time for the millions who travel on London Underground every day. They include many tourists, in particular during the summer months.

Of course, we shall in time need new lines, but the first priority should be to get the existing lines running properly. The main effort should be concentrated there instead of being postponed again, as we saw in the Autumn Statement. I agree that among the various proposed new lines the Jubilee Line has the strongest case. It is uneconomic to have a major Tube line terminating in central London, and many new links will be created by the line that is proposed.

CrossRail, though effective in many ways, and at least less uneconomic than the Channel Tunnel, will still be highly expensive in resources and will not carry a single passenger in the present century. We must not allow talk of wonderful future plans to divert attention or resources from the need to correct existing faults and failures. The medium-term necessity is for more adequate capital expenditure on public transport in London, as the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, convincingly argued this afternoon.

I hope that the Government will take this seriously and adopt the immediate step which the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, proposed. They must overcome the false economies which are always involved in postponing maintenance, which merely means that it will cost a good deal more later on.

6.46 p.m.

Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, for raising the Question. In his usual efficient way he put the problem in a nutshell in the words of the Question. He asked the Government: whether they consider that the funding of London Underground is sufficient to maintain the system and prevent further deterioration of its physical assets". We are aware of the problem that that could raise.

It is interesting to note that the two Ministers on the Front Bench are the only ones who do not have an intimate and long familiarity with London Transport. I am sure that since we all became Members of this House we have used the Underground frequently, and I have always had an interest from afar.

The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, was succinct in his arguments and put forward a magnificent array of statistics to show the problems of London Transport. It will be interesting to hear the Minister's alternative statistics to show where the noble Lord went wrong. Perhaps later we can compare them to see who was more correct. I understand that there are approximately 250 miles of London Underground network. A great deal is Victorian or Edwardian; that is a fact which always fascinates me.

London Transport's spending for the coming year has been cut by £64 million. I understand that from the reduced budget it must fund the work on the Jubilee Line, which will leave even less for the vital investment in and maintenance of the existing line. Is it true that last year's underspending of about £300 million, which was caused by the delays in obtaining the go-ahead for the Jubilee Line, has not been allowed to be carried forward but has been taken away from this year's budget?

Everyone who uses the Underground complains about the state of the infrastructure, and now London Transport's budget will be short by about £350 million. It was told that this year it would receive the money that it was promised last year—and that was after the black day last November when the Central Line went dead and passengers were stranded in the trains. Some had to walk along the track through the tunnels and others were trapped in lifts because of the power failure.

Unless I have misread the reports, I believe that the noble Baroness is probably wrong. I understand that there were actually two cable breakdowns. The first was put right fairly quickly; indeed, in less than half an hour one of the cables was repaired. However, at 8 a.m. a more extensive failure caused severe problems on the Central, Metropolitan and District Lines.

The Underground cables are, therefore, in a quite desperate state. No matter how much time the engineers spend on them, it is merely patching them up and something can go wrong a little further on. Some of the cables are up to 70 years old. London Underground would like to start a programme of progressive renewal but it is just not being given the resources to do so. Even after that dreadful experience for thousands of commuters and visitors, only one week later the funds promised to London Transport were cut.

The Financial Times reported that Mr. Denis Tunnicliffe, the General Manager of London Underground, said that it was quite true that modernisation of the Central Line amounted to £750 million and should be finalised by 1995—that is a good thing and something about which we should be very glad —but he also pointed out that there were 30 years of underspending to make up. As well as that, up to £800 million which was promised in 1991 has since been reduced by more than £200 million per year.

The basic infrastructure of track, rails, reliable power supply and safe tunnels is not immediately obvious to the average traveller, but when an event such as last November's breakdown occurs, the public suffers, business suffers and the visitors to Britain are shocked that we have let the world's first, and probably still the most famous, Underground railway become so neglected.

One quarter of the signalling is more than 40 years old. Some trains have been running for 25 years. One third of the escalators are more than 40 years old. Incidentally, the escalator that I use is quite often out of service. I have a slight obsession: I have counted the steps several times and there are 96 of them. Fortunately, however, the upward escalator is always working. I sometimes wonder. Perhaps it relates to one of those boyhood memories from when I used to visit London many years ago. In those days the wooden escalators did not seem to be out of order as often as the present steel and aluminium ones. Is it perhaps a question of cutting corners or being forced by spending cuts to cut the cloth in a different way?

As the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, said, train speeds have had to be reduced on some lines because of the state of the track. But even more worrying is the fact that there is in some cases a problem of metal fatigue in the trains themselves, some of which are 30 years old. That also forces a cut in travel speed.

If and when we get out of the recession and the level of rush hour commuters gets back to normal, the strain on the whole system—not least the stations themselves—could lead to greater discomfort for passengers and in some cases serious accidents. I have taken friends returning from London to Victoria Station in the early morning rush hour. It is almost impossible to move on the District Line platform. The queues are about eight people deep and the trains are absolutely laden; you can see the white faces of the passengers inside when they see the mob outside who are obviously going to try to get in. There could be a serious accident unless we do something about enlarging the platforms. I know that it is expensive, but it would help if we could have an extra carriage put on each train.

Catching up will take time and money. What London Transport needs more than anything—and this is said by almost everyone who speaks about it—is regular, reliable funds. If the funding was to come from the Government that would be the best way. London Underground could then rely on continuity. But there are other ways of raising money for urban transport. One was suggested in the Financial Times on November 29th. If the Minister has not read the article, I am sure that it will be in the files. It was entitled "A mega bond for London". It was merely a suggestion, but that was how the Bay Railway in Boston was funded, and the San Francisco railway was developed in much the same way.

It seems to many people who are closely involved in London Underground that unless an effort is made to catch up on renewal and refurbishing, we shall have the awesome prospect of a serious breakdown. I trust that the Minister is well aware of that. I hope that he will bear it in mind and be able to console us with his answers.

6.56 p.m.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish)

My Lords, in my short time in your Lordships' House I have noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, returns from time to time to the subject of London Underground. I suppose that this will be the first of many occasions upon which we shall discuss the matter across the Floor of the House. The noble Lord, Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove, pointed out that it was a little odd that two Members from Scotland were to wind up the debate on London Underground. Both of us are well aware of a superior underground, although slightly smaller, that exists in Glasgow. Indeed, I know that we both use it. Moreover, the noble Lord very nearly has a title which is the same as that of one of the underground stations on that line.

I believe that I can claim—as, no doubt, the noble Lord can—a certain familiarity with the London Underground. I was wondering whether to say that I know just about every tree and park on the Underground system from Heathrow or whether to say that I know just about every piece of graffiti on the walls. I have now referred to both of them. I believe that I know that part of the London Underground and, indeed, the Northern Line which, I gather, has something of a reputation, reasonably well. I must tell the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, that walking up the stairs is far better for you than walking down. Moreover, the health people give you a rule of thumb, "Walk upstairs and take the escalator down because it does not do you any good to walk down the stairs anyway". However, I know what the noble Lord means. I shall return to the subject of escalators.

The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, rightly pointed out that London's Underground network is the oldest and, indeed, the most complex in the world. Anyone who tries to work out the Underground maps will probably be able to verify that. I often wonder what happens to people who are colour blind. How do they find their way around the complexities of all the different lines? As I said, it is a complex and old system. Therefore, it is not surprising that it should have problems.

In their 1991 response to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, the Government acknowledged that decades of under-investment needed to be put right. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, admitted, the decades of under-investment cannot be put right overnight. We acknowledged the scale of the task ahead. That can be seen by the hugely increased scale of investment going into London Underground. I believe that any fair-minded examination of investment year on year would conclude that there was a considerable gearing up of annual investment during the second half of the 1980s and a further and very significant gearing up in the 1990s.

London Underground investment over the past three years has been at a higher level than at any time in the previous two decades. The budget settlement provides that it will be on a strongly rising trend over the next three years and, taken together with London Underground's own contribution, will be close to £700 million in 1996–97.

I have done a little arithmetic. It was inevitable that we would be told the Underground is under-funded now whereas yesteryear—the noble Lord, Lord Jay, kindly went down this road, so enabling me to use the argument—everything, I suppose like the summers, was endless sunshine from the beginning of May to the end of September. The truth is that when one looks at the record over the years, one realises that "under-investment" is a kind word to apply to the 1970s.

In the five years from 1975 to 1979—I cannot think for the life of me why I picked those five years but some noble Lords may be able to guess the reason—the total core business investment at 1993–94 prices was £561 million, an average of £112 million per annum. We should compare that with the past five years when the total figure was £2.281 billion—an average of £456 million every year. Indeed in 1992–93, in that single year, investment was £649 million. The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, used that high figure, not to applaud the Government for their recognition of the needs that required to be addressed, but rather to lambast us for dropping back from that high figure. One of the difficulties that arises when government decide to give a major boost in any financial year to any item of expenditure is that that becomes the baseline on which everyone judges us thereafter instead of looking at the preceding year or the preceding two years before that baseline and noting—as one can in the case of the London Underground—that our investment today is still markedly higher than it was in the years before that great boost occurred.

Lord Ezra

My Lords, I did say that I was much encouraged by the Autumn Statement of 1991, but the trouble was that in the very next year the Government cut the figure by 30 per cent. That is the whole issue. One year one receives a sum that is apparently sufficient, but the next year it is taken away. On that basis planning is very difficult.

Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish

My Lords, the noble Lord almost makes my point that the special boost given in that year is used as the baseline whereas I believe that one should look at the running totals and note the considerable increases in investment—I have already mentioned the figures—that have occurred over the past 15 years or so. Taking the five-year period we are in —the past two years and the next three years as detailed in the Budget—total core investment will be around £2.5 billion, which is an annual average of £505 million. That is not far off the total achieved for five years under the parties opposite, either separately or jointly.

It is easy to focus on what is not being done and to ignore the progress which is being made. In fact, a great deal of work is currently in hand, to update and upgrade the existing network. Noble Lords who have spoken mentioned many of the projects that are in hand, but I was not surprised to note that they all would have liked the projects to proceed quicker and to go further.

London Underground's single largest scheme is the £750 million Central Line modernisation, with 85 new trains, new signalling, and uprated power supplies. The scheme will deliver a 16 per cent. increase in capacity —I know that will be welcomed by the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael—and a 12 per cent. reduction in journey times. The new trains are already starting to appear on the network and the programme will be completed in 1995.

A £300 million programme to refurbish half of all Underground trains is already well under way. Refurbished trains, which many customers think are new, are already a familiar sight on the Circle Line, the Victoria Line and the Bakerloo Line. Last year, Angel station was reopened after a £72 million rebuild; Waterloo ticket hall is being upgraded in preparation for the arrival of Channel Tunnel services, and Bank station is being modernised. To a longer timescale, London Underground has in process a £1 billion programme of track replacement; signals are being updated (for example, at Edgware Road); and essential safety improvements are being implemented at stations throughout the network.

But, of course, there is much more to making the trains run on time than simply putting money into the system. Better management has an important role to play. The Underground is a cleaner, better-run system than it was 10 years ago. Of course, there is still more to be done, but on the whole it is a system that is better managed and more responsive to customers' needs than it has ever been before.

The Government have played their part in facilitating this change. We have responsibility for setting London Underground quality of service objectives covering many aspects of service, such as reliability, cleanliness, information and other aspects. London Underground is currently meeting eight out of the 12 objectives which it was set in 1993. New objectives will be set in 1994.

London Underground has also taken major steps down the road of improving efficiency. Its Company Plan, a wide ranging programme of safety, quality and efficiency improvements published in 1991, was endorsed by the Government. In that plan the number of grades of Underground staff was reduced, resulting in a more flexible, skilled and customer-oriented workforce. Efficient operation is essential if the maximum possible use is to be made of the funds available for investment, so improvements on this front are very much to be welcomed.

It would be, I will admit, misleading if I were to paint too rosy a picture and I do not think your Lordships would totally believe me. On the subject of escalators, they do break down, but I hate to tell your Lordships that in the best organised societies mechanical things can fail and they need to be maintained. What we are trying to do—I believe we are succeeding—is to set targets for London Underground. In 1993–94 we set a target that 89 per cent. of escalators should be operational at any peak period. The latest available figure shows that 92 per cent. are available and operating. Therefore the target we set is being exceeded. We believe that that shows some progress has been achieved. No doubt we will set new targets as I fully appreciate the importance of escalators and lifts in the stations where they are available.

I ought to mention the power failure on the Central Line on 24th November, as that caused a great deal of disruption and anxiety for many people. We now know that the power failure was caused by two defective cables at Lots Road power station. Because the fault was intermittent in nature, and was only triggered when fully loaded trains were running over the network, it was extremely difficult to isolate. These cables have now been replaced. London Underground has been asked to provide a full report into what went wrong, what lessons it has learnt from what happened, and what further action it will be taking to ensure that this kind of problem does not occur again. We expect to receive this report in a few weeks.

I wish to mention the Jubilee Line, as my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes referred to it. She said that it was not just a case of discussing the existing lines. She said that it was the future plans for extending and expanding the system that are important. The £1.9 billion Jubilee Line extension is a considerable achievement. It will be a considerable achievement for British engineering when it is opened. It is the first major new Underground line for a generation and it will be one of the biggest construction projects in the country. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport announced that the project was to go ahead on 29th October. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister drove the first pile at a ceremony at Canary Wharf on 8th December.

I believe that the extension will constitute a major asset to parts of south and east London which are not currently well served by public transport. It will mean improvements to the existing Jubilee Line, with a completely new set of trains. Its construction will create 22,000 new jobs across the United Kingdom. Over £1.2 billion-worth of contracts have now been let by London Underground. The project has resulted in over £600 million-worth of civil engineering contracts and a similar amount of electrical and mechanical work. It is a big project and I am sure that all noble Lords who have an interest in underground railways are looking forward to 1998 when the extension is due to open and we shall all be able to ride from Waterloo to Canary Wharf in 10 minutes or from Canada Water to Bond Street in 14 minutes.

My noble friend asked me about the possibility of a station at North Greenwich. I am sure my noble friend is aware that we are currently discussing with British Gas, who are the owners of the site, the prospects for a private sector contribution to the cost of this station. I am afraid I cannot speculate how successful we will be, but certainly we are involved in discussions to assess whether we can have a station at North Greenwich.

Looking further ahead, there is the prospect of CrossRail, which is currently under discussion in another place. We are convinced that there are substantial benefits to be gained from the kind of private sector collaboration that we have had for the Jubilee Line and that we are looking forward to with CrossRail.

I acknowledge that much remains to be done on London Underground, but it is inevitable that there will always be more to be done than we can afford at any one time. Demands on the public purse are, of course, infinite and it is self evident that public expenditure must be controlled. I understand that even the party opposite accepts that that is the case, at least for the moment. It is a simple fact of life that all governments have to control their expenditure and to weigh up the various pressures on them and the various demands for expenditure, not just from one department to another but within departments and, in the case of transport, from the various methods of transport and the other parts of the country which also require investment in their transport systems.

London Underground's decently modern metro—as it calls it —is an attractive concept and a worthwhile aspiration. While we should not fool ourselves that a fully modern network is achievable overnight, we shall continue to work with London Underground to ensure that the funds which are available are put to the best possible use to make sure that we have a good service for the fare payers and that we have a good deal for the taxpayer and for the welfare of the city of London. I believe that our commitment can be seen, in that in each of the next three years, taking the core business funding as outlined by my right honourable friend the Chancellor and the funding for the Jubilee Line and for CrossRail, the Government intend to invest almost £1 billion in London's Underground. By the time we reach the third year-1996–97—we shall be investing £987 million.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, and other noble Lords who have spoken for raising the issue and introducing me to parts of London Underground beyond those parts which I have seen as a passenger. While there is much to be done, I believe that the Government have a splendid record, one which certainly easily stands comparison with the record of previous governments who have, if anybody has, penny pinched with investment in London.

Lord Sefton of Garston

My Lords, before the Minister sits down can he tell us when we will receive the final instalment of the £400 million?

Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish

My Lords, I am not sure which £400 million the noble Lord has in mind.

Lord Sefton of Garston

My Lords, I am referring to the £400 million which the developers should have paid for the line from Canary Wharf.

Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish

My Lords, I understand that the noble Lord is referring to the Jubilee Line. The money from the private sector investors in the Jubilee Line will be paid to the Government over the next 25 years, in instalments which have been agreed.

House adjourned at thirteen minutes past seven o'clock.