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Light Rail

I congratulate the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) on having secured the debate. Let me remind the House that in October last year we held a similar debate on the future of light rail after the Secretary of State announced the cancellation and withdrawal of funds from three tram systems. Since then, two important things have happened. First, during the general election, the Prime Minister announced in the hon. Gentleman's constituency that the big bang solution, as it is known in Greater Manchester—the three and a half extensions to Metrolink—would go ahead. I have no reason to doubt that the Prime Minister will ensure that that happens. Secondly, in April this year the Transport Committee presented its report, ““Integrated Transport: the Future of Light Rail and Modern Trams in the United Kingdom””. It is worth going over some of its conclusions, because it puts into context many of the hon. Gentleman's comments. Six important conclusions came out of the evidence presented to the Committee. The first, which will surprise hon. Members, is that Metrolink, trams and light rail are a million times safer per billion passenger miles than either buses or heavy rail. That surprised me when I worked through the figures. Secondly—the hon. Gentleman made this point—if we look properly at the figures, we see that although the up-front capital costs of light rail have been increasing, over the period of use light rail is actually cheaper than buses. There are two ways of working that out. The first is in the Select Committee report. The cost per passenger mile for trams is 2.4p; for buses, it varies from 3.5 to 6.5p, so trams are cheaper. The second way, which hon. Members will not find in the report unless they look very hard, is that if we capitalise all the subsidy that goes into buses annually—the bus service operator grant, the money that subsidises fares for the elderly and children, and other public money going into buses via county councils and passenger transport executives—we find that it is more than all the capital investment that has gone into trams and light rail so far. What do we get at the end? No capital, and not the transport infrastructure that we need, but fat bottom lines for the major bus operating companies. Thirdly, light rail and trams have been the most important transport facility in getting people out of cars and on to public transport; they have been much more effective at that than buses. Fourthly, all the Committee's evidence showed that cities and major conurbations want trams, and that trams lead to regeneration. Shockingly, the Department for Transport and Ministers admitted that they were considering spending between £10 million and £15 million on a study enabling us to understand how regeneration works with light rail. That work really should have been done beforehand, because any city leader or mayor will tell you that light rail is vital to regeneration and future investment in cities. Fifthly, the hon. Gentleman made it clear that trams are environmentally better, and that is absolutely true. Sixthly, people sometimes say that buses can do the job of trams more cheaply; however, they cannot provide the same capacity. Ten trams running at six-minute intervals will take between 3,000 and 4,000 passengers to the centre of a city. Buses simply do not have that capacity.