Rail Passenger Safety (Hansard, 4 December 1997)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Baroness Hayman)
My Lords, the report of the Health and Safety Executive's Chief Inspector of Railways shows that the long-term improvement in railway safety is continuing. But it also expresses concern, which the Government share, at an increase in vandalism and the danger of operators taking encouraging statistics as an excuse for complacency.
The Government look to the Health and Safety Commission and Executive, as the railway safety regulator, to ensure that safety standards are maintained, and improved where necessary.

§ Baroness Thomas of Walliswood
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. In his report, the inspector expressed grave concerns, in the fiercest language which appears in that report, about delays in the promised implementation by Railtrack of installation and improvement of various mechanical devices which were supposed to stop trains going fast through signals. I shall not bore the House with all the technical details. The House of Commons Transport Select Committee echoed those concerns last year. Does the Minister agree that such concerns have been fully justified by the early evidence that failure or non-installation of automatic warning systems may have been a contributory cause of the Southall train crash in September? That crash was followed a month later by further instructions from the inspectors as to how the train operating companies should take care of and manage the existing automatic warning systems.

§ Baroness Hayman
My Lords, on the general issue raised by the noble Baroness, the Health and Safety Executive's report was indeed phrased in strong language and put a very severe warning shot across the bows of the railway companies that they must not put commercial considerations ahead of safety. My right honourable friend the Minister for Transport made very clear in his response to the HSE's report that the Government share that view.
As regards the specifics of the Southall accident inquiry, the Health and Safety Commission's public inquiry will be extremely wide ranging and the report will be published by the HSC, which will advise the Government on the recommendations. Meanwhile, it would be wrong to speculate about the cause of that 1483 particular accident. Pending the inquiry, the HSE will not hesitate to take any necessary action. That is demonstrated by its prompt action, following the accident, of writing to train operators to clarify the rules relating to defective safety equipment in cabs.

Lord Renton
My Lords, is not the failure of signals one of the principal causes of accidents? Can the Minister say whether the introduction of automatic signalling has led to more or fewer disasters?

§ Baroness Hayman
My Lords, in general terms, the safety record of rail is very good and one which continues to improve. Railway fatalities, excluding trespassers and suicides, were down to 25 in 1996-97. The number of significant train accidents per million train miles was also the lowest on record.
The issue of automatic train protection has been raised. That will be fitted on the West Coast main line, the Heathrow Express and on the new high speed routes. But the HSC advised the previous government that network-wide installation of the British Rail type of ATP could not be regarded as reasonably practical. It said that alternative safety investments would be likely to be more effective in terms of saving lives.
On the issue of the relationship between casualties and specific causes, perhaps I may write to the noble Lord.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, for many years, aircraft have had to carry black boxes which, if recovered, tell inspectors exactly what happened in the moments leading up to the fatal accident. Why is it not possible to do the same in relation to trains, so that instead of continually having to procrastinate and say that we must await the results of long-winded inquiries—as, for example, in the case of the Southall accident—the Government would be able to announce very shortly after the incident exactly what had occurred?

§ Baroness Hayman
My Lords, I am not sure that I can accept the thesis which the noble Lord puts forward that it would automatically shorten the inquiry and that we should be certain that we had all the facts simply because of the presence of a black box. The railway inspectorate consists of a body of experts in that field whose membership and staffing has doubled since 1990. They are part of the Health and Safety Commission and Executive to which the Government look for advice as to the actions which should be taken to improve safety on the railways. The latest report shows how seriously and thoroughly that task is performed.

§ Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that there is indeed a great deal of concern among the public not only about safety of railways but about the general standard of service offered at present? The Minister rejected my earlier suggestion of renationalisation because of the cost of £4,000 million, which is about as much as we are spending on 22 cases of CJD at present. Can she say now, since she has rejected that suggestion of renationalisation, how the 1484 commitment in New Labour's manifesto before the election, that the railways would be brought under control, will be achieved and how soon will it be achieved?

§ Baroness Hayman
My Lords, as I said when my noble friend Lord Stoddart raised this issue before, we have made it quite clear that at a cost of £4.5 billion, Railtrack renationalisation is not a priority for this Government. We must deal with the railway system as we find it rather than as we should have wished it to be.
However, we are committed to establishing more effective and accountable regulation by the rail regulator. We wish to ensure that public subsidy serves the public interest. I accept from my noble friend that there is public disquiet on issues both of safety and regulation in general.
We are also committed to establishing a new rail authority to provide a clear, coherent and strategic programme for the railways so that those expectations are met. Such considerations will be included in the consideration of an integrated transport policy and a White Paper is expected to be published next year. But, as my noble friend will be aware, in November my right honourable friend the Minister for Transport announced an interim railways package and three new measures in order to improve in the short term the regulation of the railways.