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Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech

My Lords, I return to the subject of transport. The gracious Speech referred to two Bills on transport—the Road Safety Bill and the Crossrail Bill. There is probably a Welsh one as well, but we do not know about it. We had the First Reading of the Road Safety Bill today, but I do not have a copy of it yet. Before talking about that, I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. I do not need to say much about rail freight as the noble Lord, Lord Snape, and the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, both talked about rail freight and got it right. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, forgot to say that rail freight volumes have also gone up by 40 per cent, as passenger volume has, but I thank him for his remarks. One thing that has come up several times this afternoon is the question of a ports and air policy, and who pays for that surface infrastructure. There is no ports policy. Planning applications have been submitted for two or three big ports, but no decisions have been made. They are expected to contribute to the costs of improving the rail and road links to those ports if they get permission. The situation seems much more fluid for airports. There is an airports policy—that is, to cover the south-east of England with concrete. We would expect a much more rigorous policy to reduce the number of car journeys to and from airports, but there does not seem to be that either. I hope that that will come out of further discussions, as and when Heathrow expands yet again, or Stansted expands. I welcome the Road Safety Bill, if it is to be much the same as the one introduced before the election. I am pleased to hear that there will be picnic areas on motorways. That is a major achievement! I was also pleased to hear that the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, supports lower alcohol and speed limits. I know that Liberal Democrats also support that. It would be good if there were an all-party consensus on that matter. I am trying to think of ways of restricting 4x4s, but that may have to wait for another day. Accidents at level crossings and bridge bashing both cost Network Rail, passengers and freight an enormous amount of time and money. At present, Network Rail does the Highways Agency's work. As virtually every accident on a level crossing is caused by the motorist rather than the train, it is ironical that the railway is always blamed. Similarly, with bridge bashing, it would be nice if it became a criminal offence for a lorry to hit a bridge. That might stop them doing it. There is some work to be done, but I welcome the Bill and look forward to reading it. It is a great idea for it to start in this House. My main subject for this debate is Crossrail. My noble friend, Lady Andrews, said that 100,000 jobs would be created. I do not know whether that is in the construction or after it is opened—I cannot see where those jobs will come from. It may be that a similar number of jobs will be lost if the other trains are not allowed to run on the network. I welcome Crossrail as a project, but I worry that the Government are putting it at risk by the way in which they are going about it. I shall give some background. For the past two years we have had a rail review and the Secretary of State made the point quite rightly and repeatedly that the structure of the railways needed to be simplified. He certainly did not go as far as suggesting renationalisation, but he has simplified the system in the legislation. He has strengthened the role of the independent rail regulator and included safety, which is a good idea, and he gave Network Rail more responsibilities in the Railways Act 2005 and outside it. But, before the ink is dry on that Act, in comes the Crossrail Bill, which does precisely the opposite. It will remove the independence of the rail regulator by allowing the Secretary of State to give directions to the Office of the Rail Regulator. Independent regulation is the cornerstone of many industries, and policies on energy, communications and transport, because it regulates monopolies and ensures that private-sector investors have the long-term confidence to invest. The second problem with the Bill is that it provides for Crossrail trains to have priority and sole use of the Great Western and Great Eastern slow lines, which are two tracks out of four on each side. Crossrail customers will gain dramatically. There will be eight times the number of passenger coaches an hour going to Maidenhead in the rush hour. I cannot see who will fill them but it is an interesting idea. There will also be eight going east. Everyone else who uses the line will be squeezed on to two tracks when they presently have four. That everybody else includes the long-distance passenger trains from as far away as Penzance, Swansea, Hereford and places in between, and Norwich on the east side, and freight. I remind your Lordships that on Great Western there are 60 freight trains a day in each direction carrying about 10 million tonnes a year of building aggregates into London. If they do not come by rail they will come by road, and everybody will complain. There are about 40 freight trains a day on the Great Eastern, so there will be problems. There will be fewer passenger trains, which will probably take an extra half an hour to get to London. In addition, there are a few things missing from the Bill. There is no information about who will maintain the tracks over which Mr Livingston and Network Rail will have control. Mr Livingston will have two tracks and Network Rail will have two, so what happens if Network Rail wants to close two tracks for maintenance? Answer: you do not travel or you get on a bus, and the freight will not go. Also, how do you signal it? At the moment it is signalled as one railway, and a signal box cannot be cut in half. There is no operating timetable, and there is a distinct lack of clarity. The Government want to build a metro system, which means 24 trains an hour on dedicated tracks—maybe. At least, that is what the legislation says. Or, will it connect the two networks of Great Eastern and Great Western by a tunnel to run some of the trains in between? As it is, the powers are for a metro with 24 trains an hour but there are no dedicated tracks on the surface. I call that theft of capacity. The Crossrail people are stealing capacity from those who have contractual rights at present, including passengers and freight. If the Government want 24 trains an hour they had better build separate tracks on the surface. There is nothing about finance in the Bill. It is interesting that Central Railways tried to develop their project in a hybrid Bill, but it was told by the Government that it could not do that because its financial plan was not robust enough. There is no financial plan for Crossrail, and many members of the public and companies will petition against the Bill. I am told that it could cost some £1 million in legal fees for all those people to be represented by counsel and so on. There is no indication that the project can be financed. The Government should produce a financing plan before the Second Reading in the Commons. In conclusion, the Government should produce a financial plan for Crossrail and they must produce a timetable which states the type of line that will be operated—will it be 24 trains an hour or 12?—because that will have an enormous difference to the effect on other people. The Government must say how Network Rail will be involved, because I believe that Network Rail should run the entire operation, including the tunnel, otherwise there will be several timetables for the various organisations. What happens when it goes wrong? The Government should make a statement about the independent rail regulator and the idea of the sole use of two lines. It is extraordinary. For once, Network Rail, the Association of Train Operating Companies and the chairmen of the Rail Freight Group and EWS Railway have written a joint letter to the Secretary of State saying, "You've got it wrong. We like the project, but this is not the way of going about it". If the Government can produce that information and give comfort on the issues that I have raised, then the Crossrail Bill deserves to succeed. But if they will not, those who use the other parts of the network and/or freight will have a reasonable case to say, "You'd better stop it and think again".