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Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech

My Lords, having witnessed the veritable cornucopia of new legislation unveiled from the Woolsack yesterday by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, it is clear that transport has come off pretty badly. But I share with the noble Lord, Lord Snape, the view that we do not need a lot of legislation; we need some action, and many actions can be taken without recourse to legislation. I hope that the Government will take action in some of the areas that I want to mention. I start by referring to buses. It is a very mundane subject, but discussions are about to begin between the Government and the English bus operators about the Chancellor's announcement that there will be free bus travel for elderly people. That is a welcome move, but it is very important that some principles are observed. In Wales, the system is free. It covers all district councils and there is a uniform system of compensation for bus operators. Scotland is moving the same way. But in England, currently every district council negotiates separately. There are separate systems of remuneration for bus operators—and I am afraid that many of them do not cover the costs—which leads to bus services being reduced and other bus users subsidising the system, rather than the money coming from government. It is important that we address the following issues. Over what areas do the bus passes apply? Are there any boundaries and, if so, why? And will there be a system of remuneration for bus operators, which means that they are paid for what they produce? The second big issue is road congestion, which affects us all, wherever we are. No one who has been, as I was yesterday, at the other side of Heathrow, where the connections are being built to Terminal 5, can fail to be amazed at the huge amount of money being spent and the huge disruption caused by the entrance to Terminal 5. When it is finished, we shall simply have moved the congestion a little way from there along the M25 and the M4, and I think that the congestion will just get worse and worse. The start of a new government is the time to start with a scheme of road-user charging, linked to fuel duty. It would mean that people who use busy roads at busy times would pay the costs and people—particularly those in rural communities—who use rural roads and do not cause any difficulties for other people would pay considerably less for their fuel through fuel duty than they do now. The whole thing could be packaged together with many winners, and the people who cause a lot of congestion on the M25—I hesitate to mention foreign lorry drivers, who pay nothing—would pay towards the cost of the roads they use. I was very glad to hear the noble Lord opposite mention ports. The ports strategy is a shambles. The proposals for Dibden Bay near Southampton were turned down by an inspector. There are proposals for three more ports in the south and the likelihood is that they will also be turned down by an inspector. There is no strategy, whereas there is a strategy for airports. The people affected may not like it but at least we know where we are going. With ports, we do not know where we are going and, because of that, no coherent measures can be adopted on the railway network to convey the containers measuring nine feet six inches, mentioned by the noble Lord opposite, which need to be taken off our roads. People in road haulage are talking about even bigger lorries and, again, frequent users of the roads know that they are awful and are driven vastly in excess of the speed limits. If anyone ever stopped to weigh them, which they very rarely do, we would probably find that they are also well in excess of the weight limits. The renewal and maintenance of our railways, which was also referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Snape, is improving. Much of that improvement has involved catching up on the neglect of the Railtrack years. I hesitate to think what kind of railway system we would have now if British Rail were still in place and had the sums of money which have been wasted not only on the railway system but on the vast multitude of merchant bankers, lawyers and others who have profited out of the shambles of railway privatisation. But Network Rail is not controlled; it is run by three people and they are not answerable to anyone who can hold them to account. I believe that when a review of railway charging is carried out, it will be essential to tie the remuneration of Network Rail to the profits of the train operating companies and the number of passengers and the amount of freight they carry, because it is the satisfaction of customers that should drive Network Rail's policy. The disjointure of the track and signalling and the trains is completely wrong. It was wrong when the Conservatives privatised the railway, and it has been to the shame of this Government that they have not brought the two sides together. Our high-speed trains have been good, but they are now 30 years old, and the time has come to renew them. That is a decision the Government cannot put off. I want to see the new franchise of GNER, the new franchises of the Great Western when the franchise is let at the end of the year, and those of the Midland Main Line come together with Network Rail, which is the structural authority, to produce a new high-speed train. I want those companies to be in the driving seat. The idea that a new high-speed train could be designed by civil servants fills me with horror. A new train could be longer, but need not be much faster. My noble friend Lord Mar and Kellie will refer to what lies beyond the next generation of high-speed trains. We need a replacement, and one that is serviceable. The present trains are serviceable, but, by the time they reach 35 or 40 years old, they will have to be replaced. The present Government should include that. The CAA is also undertaking a review of airport charges in London. It would be very timely for the Government to reinforce the view that when charging airlines, whether they are landing freight or passengers, they should pay the cost not only of the pollution they create, but also of providing for proper surface access to the airports, for which they are causing the demand. Whether people are travelling, going to work at the airport or meeting someone there, the demand comes from the airlines, and they should pay for it. The charges in London are lower than at any other major airport in the world. Bearing in mind that people want to land at Heathrow more than anywhere else, it is absolute nonsense that the charges there should be lower than anywhere else. It is economics stood on its head. I mention two other things. First, local transport plans. Will the Government tell us whether some objective measures can be introduced? I was horrified to be given the local transport plan for Oxfordshire. It was nearly 300 pages long and it was all opinion. I feel sorry for the people who have to read hundreds of these documents because they cannot possibly make any comparison between the quality of one and the other. By the time they have read them, their heads must absolutely ache. There are a few objective measures that are expected in any local transport plan. For instance, how fast is traffic moving; are bus loadings going up; are CO2 emissions being reduced? If you are getting better, you get more money, and if you are getting worse, you get none. None of this spreading the jam thinly; reward the people who are doing things, and the people who do not do things should not be rewarded.