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Railways

My Lords, I do not think that I need to respond to that. The noble Lord made some quite forceful observations about the road haulage industry. I can see little advantage for the road haulage industry in going to longer and heavier vehicles because all the productivity advantages would go to the consumer, as they did with the advent of 38 tonners and 44 tonners. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, made several detailed observations about rail connections, and he is right. The disappointment is that it is taking so long to sort out these problems. No doubt, long waits or the disruption of connections are a real deterrent to the use of rail rather than car. This month, Network Rail published its strategic business plan, which was derived from the high-level output statement. It is certainly exciting and seeks to address some of the problems arising from the success of railways post-privatisation. The SBP covers control period 4 from 2009-14. In asking questions about the long-term budgets, I accept that the situation is much better than the one described by the noble Lord, Lord Snape, many years ago when we had very short-term budgets, but can the Minister tell us whether the strategic business plan is all funded in the CSR in future expenditure plans, or is it an aspiration, just like most of the 10-year transport plan? Is it really going to happen, and is it enough? Can the system cope in the future, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked? What can be afforded? Prior to privatisation in the mid-1990s, I read a report about capacity constraints. This was many years ago so I cannot remember all the bottlenecks, though there many even then. But for example, I recall that the Welwyn viaduct was mentioned. Can the Minister arrange for details of all the current bottlenecks in the rail transport system to be placed in the Library? The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, painted what I am told is an accurate picture of the increase in requirements for transport. The Freight Transport Association is extremely exercised about the lack of capacity both of the ports and from them, so I hope that the HLOS does enough to provide an increased freight capacity. I share the concern of many noble Lords about the poor utilisation of the Channel Tunnel. It is bizarre to have lorries going from the Midlands all the way to Italy when their freight could go by train. Can the Minister indicate what the problem is, what he is doing about it, and whether he will follow up the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and have a go at the EU Commission? Prior to privatisation there seemed to be some confusion in the rail industry as to whether it existed for the benefit of those within it or its passengers and freight customers. There is little doubt about the answer today, at least in the UK. The noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, suggested that it was not privatisation which raised the utilisation of the railway system, but that congestion elsewhere made it essential. I do not know the answer, but if we had not reformed the industry, we really would be in a mess now. However, passenger care still has some way to go. This week we had some interesting media reports about the lady annunciator, if that is the right term, who will be experiencing severe delays before her next assignment arrives. But why are some of the announcements so dreary, Stalinist and unintelligible? There is plenty of good practice around, so why is it not universal? I use the Tube system extensively, but I never bother to buy a ticket because I use an Oyster card. For how long are we going to persist with the antediluvian system of buying a ticket immediately before starting an ad hoc train journey? Why can there not be some form of national Oyster card? Of course it would have to be smarter than the current system, but it would avoid the risk of missing a train by a few minutes and the associated stress of that, and it would save the cost of issuing tickets in terms of labour, capital and space. I hope sincerely that the Minister can also tell us what progress is being made in extending the Oyster card system to all of the London commuter rail system. It would be interesting to compare the number of ticket machines at Victoria station with the number of retail outlets. Quite often at Victoria you see queues of very frustrated customers at each and every ticket machine, trying to buy a ticket before their train departs. Finally, the signalling system is clearly key to safety, reliability, productivity and even fuel emissions, and we have been extremely lucky to have the contribution this afternoon of the noble Lord, Lord Methuen. I understand that the safety problems associated with SPAD have largely been solved, but now accidents at level crossings are the biggest risk to the system. Noble Lords did as much as they could during the passage of the Road Safety Bill to reduce that risk, but I am unhappy about the reliability of the signalling system. I do not understand why, from a technical point of view, we have such reliability problems. I am guessing, but I would not be surprised if a more sophisticated signalling system could produce a nugatory acceleration and deceleration of trains, which are very heavy, thus saving even more emissions. However, I recognise that rail transport is already very efficient on emissions. Fortunately, my noble friend Lord Pearson of Rannoch is not in his place and so I can safely mention the European rail traffic management system so well described by the noble Lord, Lord Methuen. I am told that it will provide greater capacity, efficiency and reliability. If we want a pan-European rail freight system, as advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, we will need to accept this European system. As to our aspirations of what we can do with signalling in the long term, we have to ask whether they are ambitious enough. I am not an expert on signalling—I cannot answer the question—but if I were the Minister I would look very closely at it.