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28 Jan 2003 : Column 813—continued
Andrew Mackinlay: I take the hon. Gentleman's point. However, a substantial part of the Bill relates to the British Transport police. Under clause 74, Scotland is included. This will now be the primary Act for the British Transport police; it is not amending legislation with regard to it. On the face of it, much of the Bill relates exclusively to England and Wales.
Mr. Weir: The policing of the railways would presumably be a devolved matter for the Scottish Parliament, as the normal police process is devolved. That is another example of the need to make sure that there is separate Scottish representation. That must be taken on board, because otherwise not only will the Scottish Parliament have no input in respect of devolved rail services, but, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, it will have no input into their policing.
6.12 pm
Linda Perham (Ilford, North): Like the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young), I was pleased to listen to the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Lawrie Quinn), speaking with great knowledge and experience of the railway industry and as an engineer. We in this country do not value our engineers enough. I have been married to an engineer for more than 30 years and I certainly value him.
It is very important for Parliament to make laws to improve transport safety, so I extend a general welcome to the Bill, in particular its provisions to enhance and modernise the functions of the British Transport police. I spoke this afternoon to the chief constable of the British Transport police, Ian Johnston, whom I have known for a number of years, since his time as an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police. The service that he commands is very supportive of the Bill's provisions.
The British Transport police occupy a unique place in the world of the emergency services. It is a flexible service that facilitates and adds value to the work of other emergency services, while carrying out its own priorities of crime control and accident prevention. We are not always aware of its presence, but, as the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire said, last year it dealt with 75,000 crimes and 40,000 minor offences.
The BTP have developed particular expertise in controlling graffiti, policing sports fans and handling major incidents, including terrorist actions. While I am on the subject of major incidents, I am sure that the
House will join me in sending our best wishes to those involved in dealing with the frightening accident on the Central line at Chancery lane on Saturday. As I mentioned when I intervened on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, 800 people were involved and over 30 were injured. Large numbers of people in my London borough, including me, travel on the Central line and I have eight Central line stations in my constituency. The Central line around Bank is the busiest part of the underground, and losing the Central line service for any length of time is a huge inconvenience to my constituents as well as all commuters and visitors to the capital.As soon as the incident was reported, the BTP responded, along with colleagues from City of London police, the Metropolitan police, the fire brigade and ambulance services. London Underground also provided a rapid specialist response. The first BTP officer was on the scene within seven minutes of the call, and assisted the other emergency services in evacuating the passengers from the train.
The role of the police service in the early stages of a major incident is to facilitate the actions of the rescue and medical services. A major incident was declared by the BTP duty officer following a quick assessment at the scene. In such cases, it is imperative that a quick assessment is made, as there is potential for terrorist incidents in the current climate. The BTP has the expertise and training to make a rapid assessment of incidents on the underground and the railway network, and it should be praised for having done so in this instance. About 30 BTP officers attended the scene, and the co-operation between the services at Chancery lane was very good indeed.
Setting up a new police authority for the BTP should be widely welcomed—indeed, it has been in the House this afternoon. That will be helpful in putting BTP officers on an equally constitutional footing to those of Home Office forces, which is important in a number of ways—for example, helping to get powers similar to those of Home Office forces to employ community support officers. An independent authority will help to address perceptions of partiality in terms of the force being too weak or too tough on the industry.
The establishment of an independent authority will address issues of confidence, trust, accountability and transparency, which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) during his intervention on the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins). It is disappointing, however, that the opportunity has not been taken to formalise the BTP's extended jurisdiction, which has been secured temporarily by anti-terrorism legislation.
At present, the BTP run the risk of losing their extended powers, not because people do not believe that they should have them, but because, in the eyes of the legal purists, they were secured by the "back door" of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. The Bill's placing of jurisdiction on a statutory rather than a contractual footing is a satisfactory arrangement. Placing BTP pay and conditions in a regulatory framework governed by the Secretary of State is a helpful move in the force in modernising and achieving comparability with the Home Office forces.
I shall briefly discuss other provisions. I welcome the measures relating to alcohol limits for mariners and aviators, but I am one who happens to believe that the alcohol limits should be reduced from 80 mg to 50 mg for drivers and mariners. The hon. Members for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and for Bath (Mr. Foster) referred to that.
Finally, the introduction of the rail accident investigation branch will provide greater clarity of responsibility and a speedier understanding of the cause of accidents. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State covered that and said in response to my intervention that, had the Bill been in place, the chief inspector of the RAIB would have been involved in considering the Central line accident. If the RAIB is to be effective in determining primacy at an accident site, it must benefit from legislative backing in resolving potential conflicts between safety and criminal justice requirements.
I would have liked the Bill to achieve a greater exploration of the scope and powers of the RAIB, but I hope that those issues will be covered in Committee, where I hope to serve.
6.19 pm
Mr. Boris Johnson (Henley): It is a great pleasure to be called at last. I would have found sitting here throughout the debate as some people find enduring the railways under this Government were it not for the fact that that has been alleviated by some good speeches, not least that of the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Linda Perham), whom it is a pleasure to follow.
Of course, I agree with the vast bulk of the Bill. It is sensible to set up a special body to investigate accidents, particularly if that will lead to fewer fees for lawyers when such things happen. Also, I of course think it important that skippers of ships should not be inebriated. One can but approve the provision about drunkenness on ships, but I hope that the Minister will assure the House that it will be confined to ships, and that he will apply a light touch to the tiller when it comes to those who enjoy the very lavish hospitality at events such as the Henley regatta. Drunken oarsmen should not be subject to excessively draconian enforcement, as they are not intended to fall within the dominion of the Bill.
I echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young), a former Secretary of State for Transport, said about the role of the British Transport police. Their duties could be alleviated if it were made absolutely clear whether it was an offence to take a bicycle on a train. I know that my right hon. Friend is a keen cyclist, as I am. I hope that the Minister will recognise that bikes are clean, green and far safer in regard to other road users than cars. Their use should be encouraged. I should like the law to be applied uniformly. Everyone should have the right to take their bike on the train.
I am interested in one particular element of the Bill—what the Secretary of State called, in his opening remarks, the restructuring of the Office of the Rail Regulator. That is a euphemism: the regulator is going to be abolished, not restructured. The single regulator will be replaced by an office with at least four people appointed by the Secretary of State. There will be a separate chairman and chief executive, at a cost,
according to the explanatory notes, of at least £200,000. However, that is the least of my objections to the proposal. I want to probe the Government's motives in abolishing the rail regulator in that way. Is the proposal the best thing for the rail industry and, above all, the travelling public?It is easy to see why the Government have chosen this option when one remembers the murky events of 7 October 2001. That was when Railtrack was done to death by the Government, and when shareholders, who included my valiant, Labour-voting secretary, were despoiled. That led to a further deterioration in railway performance, and to a huge extra burden on the taxpayer. We must not forget that, in 2000, Railtrack was able to raise £2 billion on the market.
Moreover, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire pointed out, safety improved throughout the period of privatisation. Last summer, the proportion of trains running on time fell from 83 per cent. to 81 per cent. That compares with the 90 per cent. achieved under Railtrack.
To understand the disaster that the Government have wreaked on the railways, one must go back to the moment when the former Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, the right hon. Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers), decided to ignore the regulator and destroy Railtrack. It was technically in the power of the regulator, Tom Winsor, to increase the funding to Railtrack by raising the fees payable by the 25 train operating companies. It was also possible for the regulator to order an interim review of Railtrack's funding and to save the company. In retrospect, we can see that such a move would have saved the taxpayer a great deal of money, and obviated the need to pay out £500 million or £1 billion in compensation.
Not only was the regulator circumvented, but he was threatened by the former Secretary of State with the legal extinction of his powers. The Government were less than candid about that threat, which eventually cost the former Secretary of State his job, although he made seven heroic attempts to hang on to it. It would be fair to say that the refusal of the regulator to lie down and die incurred the deep displeasure of the Government and, I suspect, that it led Ministers not merely to abolish him but also his office and to repose his powers in the hands of at least four other people appointed by the Government.
Do the Government care at all about the independence of the successor office? My case is that they should care and I shall set it out briefly. The regulator should be free to safeguard the economic health of the railways and that means operating in the interests of the travelling public and of the potential investor in the railways, and not merely acting on behalf of the Treasury.
Anyone who has flown over Britain, as I did on Saturday, can see the need for that investment. There are plenty of new prisons all over the country and plenty of shut Beeching railways, with grassed-over lines. It is fascinating. Everywhere one looks, however, one sees snarled-up, choked-up traffic—testimony to the failure of the Government's transport policy. We need an independent rail regulator not only to decide how much Network Rail needs, as he will by the end of the year, but
also because he can stand up to the Treasury and reassure passengers as well as those who are thinking of investing in rail.Rail needs massive investment and we need someone who will not be needlessly—[Interruption.] The Minister of State speaks from—what is it called? [Hon. Members: "A sedentary position."]—or sitting down, to put it in Anglo-Saxon.
We need a regulator who will not deter investment by being subject to political manipulation and abuse. We need someone who will not be pointlessly controversial or on an ego trip, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire has pointed out, but who will be firm with the Government in the interests of the travelling public and the potential investor.
I hope that the Minister can reassure me, but I am not convinced that the new office proposed in the Bill will have that independence. Is the Government's intention that the new office of rail regulation should be composed of poodles and lap dogs, or will it be genuinely independent? The City was truly shocked by the way in which the Government rode roughshod over the present regulator and seized control of Railtrack. By that action, they undermined the confidence of potential investors in rail and we are all paying for it.
The Government have a bad record for trying to nobble regulators. We saw their scandalous behaviour recently in the matter of Sir William Stubbs and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. The net result, tragically, was not only to frustrate the legitimate expectations of thousands of hard-working A-level students but also, staggeringly and very sadly, to undermine confidence in A-levels themselves, which have served this country well for the past 50 years and—
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