Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1000-1017)
22 OCTOBER 2003
PROFESSOR RODERICK
SMITH AND
PROFESSOR CHRIS
NASH
Q1000 Mr Stevenson: It is the majority
percentage?
Professor Nash: It has shot up
in the last two years. I would not think it is as high as 80 or
90%. The figure I have in my evidence for 1998 was 43% coming
from the taxpayer. It will certainly be substantially higher than
that by now.
Q1001 Mr Stevenson: Substantially higher?
In that case, would you agree with the contention that effectively
we have the public paying for our railways?
Professor Smith: Largely speaking
that is true but you have only looked at one side of the equation
and looked at the income. The costs of the railways have been
vastly increased by the way they have been privatised, for example
small operators having to pay large sums of money to hire decrepit
stock from banks, which I have shown in my evidence, and that
money leaves the system.
Q1002 Mr Stevenson: You have partly pre-empted
my next question and that is what would both your good selves
say to the contention that the reality of what the Government
is facing is that it is highly unlikely that the private sector
will be attracted to infrastructure investment in our railways.
The vast majority of the resources available to the railways,
both in terms of capital and revenue, is coming from the public
purse and it is inevitable—and I use that word so you can
challenge it if you wish—that we will be faced with a decision
that reflects that reality and renewals and maintenance should
be with one organisation, possibly the Strategic Rail Authority,
and the operation of the trains should be in the hands of companies,
but there will be far, far fewer of those than there are today?
Professor Smith: I largely agree
with that analysis.
Professor Nash: I agree that the
Government is going to have to find a lot of the money and that
the Government needs to set the strategy through a body such as
the Strategic Rail Authority. I also agree that we have had excessive
fragmentation. I do think franchising in itself can be made to
work reasonably well and indeed that some of the smaller operators
have really performed rather well and I do think that contracting
out, as long as it is done effectively, with the body doing the
contracting out having enough control over quality and information,
can work. So whilst I broadly agree with what you say I would
not perhaps go quite so far. I think there is a role for the smaller
company and there is a role for contracting out as part of the
overall strategy.
Q1003 Mr Stevenson: I chose the wording
of my questions deliberately so you could challenge them. I have
two specific questions if I might very briefly. Do you believe
that it is a sensible distinction to make between the provision
for renewals and maintenance on our railways?
Professor Smith: I have not got
a strong view on that. You said "is there any sensible distinction
to be made?"
Q1004 Mr Stevenson: Let me rephrase it,
is there a distinction that makes any economic or practical sense
between the provision of renewals and the maintenance of our railways?
Professor Smith: I am not convinced
there is.
Professor Nash: I think there
is actually. I think that the work on renewals is a different
sort of work where you give a company possession of the track
for a certain length of time and then you take it back compared
with actually being on the track while trains are running. So
it is easier to contract out renewals than it is day-to-day maintenance.
Q1005 Mr Stevenson: Is there any future
for special purpose vehicles?
Professor Smith: Trains that run
at 200 kilometres an hour.
Q1006 Chairman: Can you see private industry
rushing forward with deals on special purpose vehicles?
Professor Nash: I think it can
be done but again I would expect the Strategic Rail Authority
to have to make the running, to put in money, to put in various
guarantees to make the deal work.
Chairman: You are not aware of any of
that at the moment, thank you. Mr Efford.
Q1007 Clive Efford: You indicated that
you heard our friend from the Netherlands earlier on, and in one
of their answers as to how they managed to scale down their package
for improving and upgrading they indicated that they were focusing
on reliability, capacity, station design and environmental issues.
Do you see any scope for that in our network to actually scale
down and focus in the way they describe to improve capacity and
reliability and all the other things we want to see?
Professor Smith: I think there
is some scope. Whether it is sufficient to do what we want to
do is a different question.
Q1008 Clive Efford: When you say that,
are you thinking of InterCity services or urban services like
Network South East, around London?
Professor Smith: I suppose principally
the urban services.
Q1009 Clive Efford: You think there is
very little scope?
Professor Smith: There is some
scope but not sufficient to deliver the capacity that we will
need in the long run.
Q1010 Clive Efford: Can I just go back
to an answer earlier on. You were suggesting local authorities.
Is there not a problem in that if you are trying, as Professor
Nash indicated earlier on, to increase capacity by taking out
stops and moving training services along more quickly if along
the way Pratt's Bottom is saying we want to keep our station open
and the network is saying we will not stop there any more—
Professor Smith: We are at cross
purposes here. I was really thinking of the deep rural railways
not the local railways that are serving centres of population.
I was thinking of the remote regions.
Q1011 Clive Efford: But in some parts
these stations are part of the network.
Professor Smith: I am sure we
would be selective in looking at those.
Clive Efford: You would devolve down
so you would have selective devolution? Okay. It is a Liberal
policy!
Q1012 Chairman: We have had one or two
of your high powered academic colleagues suggesting that all we
need to do is build more roads because that is much better value
and it would serve the needs of the population and would be more
popular. Why is it clear that sufficient new road capacity should
not be built to serve increased travel demand?
Professor Smith: Where would we
put all the cars that are buzzing up and down these roads? I have
indicated in my submission that a car is stationary for over 95%
of its life.
Q1013 Chairman: You do not think that
is why people buy them?
Professor Smith: They buy them
for the few per cent of their life that they are actually moving
but then they have to put them somewhere. Where are they going
to put them if they commute in cars into city centres?
Q1014 Chairman: I simply put it to you
that we were assured that the best value for the taxpayer (and
certainly for the person using the service) was that all we needed
to do was build new roads. You find this theory unacceptable?
Professor Smith: You should not
believe everything that academics tell you, Madam Chairman!
Q1015 Ian Lucas: Air transport is something
we have not touched on in our discussion. Certainly from Scotland
nowadays the main competitor to driving is air transport. Would
a high speed link be able to compete, bearing in mind there is
an increasing shift from the North West towards travelling to
London by air.
Professor Smith: It would certainly
compete for journey times up to about three/three and a half hours.
With a high speed train if you wanted to you could get it from
Edinburgh. Whether there is the demand from Edinburgh I do not
know. My proposal for a high speed network does not go so far
north.
Q1016 Chairman: How did you pick your
route, as a matter of interest?
Professor Smith: Looking at population
densities essentially.
Q1017 Chairman: It is entirely on catchment
areas?
Professor Smith: Yes, because
that is what drives transport. On your question about internal
air transport my extrapolations show that by 2015 more passenger
kilometres will be covered by air than by the rail network.
Chairman: Gentlemen, you have been very
interesting and very useful to us, thank you very much. You have
also been very patient so we are grateful.
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