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Channel Tunnel Rail Link (Supplementary Provisions) Bill

My Lords, this is a very interesting amendment. I go even further than the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, in suggesting that the whole question of historical support should be resolved at a very early date. My noble friend said in Committee that all passenger operators—rather than freight operators—should be treated equally in terms of access rights and access charges on the CTRL. There is absolutely no reason why the Government should not sell Eurostar UK without any conditions, subsidies or anything else to the highest bidder on the basis of the charges. On the previous amendment, my noble friend said that the charges for passenger trains, and I assume it is all passenger trains, would be £2,000 per train as a contribution to the financing costs of the CTRL, plus the operating costs. Several issues come out of that. First, if the Government start subsidising international services, it is inevitably a can of worms because you do not know what is happening on the other side of the Channel. SNCF or Deutsche Bahn might want to come in as competition, as we have discussed. You do not know what subsidy they are getting for which services, so it is a seriously slippery slope to start to subsidise any international services, including Eurostar. It should not be subsidised in the way that might be inferred from the last two lines of the amendment. I will leave that to the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield. However, there is an even bigger problem here, because the charges that appear to have been considered for using the CTRL are based on what they think they can get away with with Eurostar, which includes a £20 charge per passenger for using the Channel Tunnel, regardless of how many people go. I have been talking to some people who have an interest in local authorities in Kent, and they are still very upset that only one or two Eurostar trains a day are stopping at Ashford. We talked about the fact that it is a high-speed line and any train should be able to go on it, so a service such as Manchester-Birmingham-London-Stratford-Ebbsfleet- Ashford-Calais-Lille, for example, could be run by a competing train operator. The answer was, ““Who is going to fork out £2,000 a train for going up 60 miles of track?””. That is a very high figure for a service to start. There will be the same problems as there are with the Channel Tunnel. I said on the previous amendment that the charges will be so high that no one will use it. The figure of £2,000 is arbitrary. I do not know whether any discussions have taken place with German or French railways or anyone else. Eurostar has little choice but to accept it, because it is owned by LCR, which is guaranteed by government; so it is hardly a discussion between equals. There is one last problem that I would like to ask my noble friend about. On the rest of the network, train operators pay so much to use a station. If a train stops at a station, they pay so much to Network Rail for the services that may be provided, such as the platform being in good order. The international stations used by Eurostar are quite expensive and they are quite expensive to operate, because you have all the special facilities such as customs and immigration and the segregation that goes with that. Is the idea that there will be a separate charge made to Eurostar and anyone else who wishes to operate international services for calling at stations? At the moment, Eurostar probably either owns or operates the stations, but how will this work with open access? This is all a barrier to other operators coming in and providing competing services. This is the only opportunity that we have to talk about these things before it is all signed and sealed in the contract, and we suddenly find that we end up with another contractual disaster, which we have talked about already with the Channel Tunnel and other things. I would be grateful to my noble friend for some responses. There is merit in such an amendment, and maybe the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, will consider bringing it back on Third Reading.