London Underground Privatisation: Publicity Costs (Hansard, 10 March 1997)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Viscount Goschen)
My Lords, no costs were incurred by the Government. As was clearly stated on both sides of the leaflet, it was published by the Conservative Party.

§ Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Viscount for that Answer. I presume that that means that the privatisation proposal, as launched by the Secretary of State on that day, was the start of his election manifesto. Will the noble Viscount confirm that any leaflets distributed in Ealing, which is the Secretary of State's constituency, will be declared as part of his election expenses?

§ Viscount Goschen
My Lords, with the greatest respect, that is a very silly question. I wonder whether the best attack which the noble Lord can muster in relation to London Underground privatisation is in relation to the distribution of leaflets, which were political documents paid for by a political party.

§ Lord Ezra
My Lords, I am addressing the Minister as a member of the Government and not as a member of the Conservative Party. Will the noble Viscount agree that regular users of the Underground, of which I happen to be one, would, in present circumstances, be much more interested in the current level of funding than what might or might not happen eventually with regard to privatisation?

§ Viscount Goschen
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, will know that very substantial quantities of grant go to London Underground at the moment. But I believe that passengers will be looking to the future to see how the situation can be improved and the investment backlog dealt with. It is clear that over many decades that has not been achieved. We now need innovative proposals to attract massive quantities of investment into the London Underground. That is exactly what privatisation will do.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, as another regular user of the Underground system, I assure my noble friend that the 5 prospect of attracting very large amounts of new capital in order to make that the efficient service that we want is extremely welcome.

§ Viscount Goschen
My Lords, indeed; I can fully accept that. People have been complaining for many years about the level of investment in the Underground. It is clear that government resources are limited and we need the co-operation of the private sector through privatisation.

§ Lord Marsh
My Lords, did the Minister see a recent opinion poll which resulted in a finding that two-thirds of the people polled thought that privatising London Underground was a very bad idea? Rightly or wrongly, does he not think that there might have been an electoral misjudgment?

§ Viscount Goschen
My Lords, I also saw opinion polls at the time of the last election which suggested that the Conservative Party would not win it, but that did not prove to be the case.

§ Baroness Turner of Camden
My Lords, does the leaflet indicate the number of jobs likely to be lost as the result of privatisation or is that felt not appropriate for the leaflet?

§ Viscount Goschen
My Lords, I should be very happy to present a leaflet to the noble Baroness or she could come to Conservative Central Office to receive a more in-depth briefing. The leaflet sought to put the 10 guarantees which the Secretary of State gave to the House of Commons before a wider distribution so that passengers could read that. We know—and we have seen from the other privatised industries—that the only way forward for long-term success is to attract the investment and improve services. That is what guarantees jobs, not inefficiency.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, how much is being invested by the public in the renovation of the Bakerloo Line, and how will that be reflected in the price which is asked on privatisation?

§ Viscount Goschen
My Lords, as the noble Lord recognises, a large amount of investment is being put into the existing core network. I am not able to give the noble Lord a line-by-line breakdown, but if those figures are available, I shall provide them to the noble Lord. However, it is clear that a great deal more money is required to overcome the investment backlog. That is the important matter which we must tackle.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, is my noble friend able to use his judgment to inform the House how long he thinks it will be before the Labour Party comes round to planning privatisation of the London Underground?

§ Viscount Goschen
My Lords, we have seen historic privatisations, which were opposed tooth and nail, to which the Labour Party has now come round and is championing. Indeed, it is an advocate of some of those 6 privatisations. I cannot answer for the party opposite. It is still trying to work out what it will do about the heavy rail network and which parts of that are to be bought back. We should set the party opposite one challenge at a time.

§ Lord Dubs
My Lords, does the Minister remember that in the year before British Telecom was privatised, the majority of telephone boxes in London were out of order and were not repaired, I believe, in order to give the impression that privatisation would bring great benefits? Is it not the case that the Government's deliberate policy of starving London Underground of capital, especially at the present time, is happening so that the Government can put forward a spurious case for the benefits of privatisation? Had there been enough capital provided to run a decent system, those arguments about privatisation would count for nothing.

§ Viscount Goschen
My Lords, the noble Lord is quite wrong. I believe that that is a slur on the management of London Underground, which has achieved a great deal with the resources available at its disposal. But it is interesting to look at the figures. Over the next few years, investment in LT's core network will be on average 50 per cent. above the level of the 1980s and twice the level of the 1970s.

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, was that answer not rather extraordinary? The Minister said in answer to my noble friend that his comments were a slur on the management of London Underground. Is he claiming that it is the management of London Underground which is responsible for the cuts in capital investment? Surely it is well known that management protested against the cuts imposed by government.

§ Viscount Goschen
My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord's question implied that scheming was taking place between the management of London Underground and the Government in order to do down London Underground and to follow the cynical policy of making privatisation look good. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact of the investment figure which I have given—twice the level of the investment figures of the 1970s—has put paid to that. By that reckoning, the Labour Party was campaigning for the privatisation of the Underground 20 years ago, which was not the case.

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, when the Minister reads my noble friend's question in Hansard, he will realise that there was no suggestion in it of there having been scheming on the part of the management of London Underground. My noble friend was complaining, quite rightly, about the cuts imposed on the capital programme of London Underground.

§ Viscount Goschen
My Lords, I dare say that we could continue the argument for a further 18 minutes or so. However, the fact is that the amounts provided to London Underground are far higher than was the case in the 1970s; the level of the core investment is twice that of the 1970s. The Government have been providing 7 good and proper levels of investment. However, we all realise that more is required. Therefore, we have innovated proposals as to how to achieve that; but, from the party opposite, we have nothing.

§ Lord Hayhoe
My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister remind those who were responsible for the last three questions that the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer has adopted the public expenditure plans of this Government and has said that he will maintain them for two years? Therefore, what on earth are they talking about?

§ Viscount Goschen
My Lords, my noble friend makes a most interesting and poignant observation; and leaves rather a large hole in the financial predictions of the party opposite.

§ Lord Berkeley
My Lords, perhaps I may refer to my Question for a moment. Can the Minister confirm that London Underground gave the Conservative Party permission to distribute the leaflets on the system? Further, will the noble Viscount encourage London Underground to give the same permission to the Labour Party, as that might actually help distribute our policy when the time comes?

§ Viscount Goschen
My Lords, when the party opposite develops a policy, no doubt they will produce a leaflet.

§ Lord Dubs
My Lords, as the Minister referred to me on several occasions, perhaps I may put the following question to him. Is he aware that the comment I made earlier was intended to be in criticism of the Government's starving London Transport of capital and preventing an effective management of London Underground from doing the job that it wants to do? It is the Government who are at fault, not London Transport management.

§ Viscount Goschen
My Lords, of course I entirely accept the intention behind the noble Lord's earlier question. However, when the noble Lord accuses the Government of restricting the finance available to London Underground, I can, for the third or fourth time, tell the House that it was twice that of the 1970s. That must count for something in the noble Lord's arguments as regards the level of funding available to London Underground.