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Sustainable Railways

If I have time, I shall try to deal with that question, although I suspect that it is more for the Minister to answer—I am sure that he looks forward to doing so. We need not only faster journey times, but more frequent and later journeys—for example, the last train from London to north of Newcastle leaves at 6 o'clock, which is not useful for many people, especially Members of Parliament. Faster journey times are important, but we should not have to wait for high-speed lines from London to Edinburgh, or to Carlisle on the way to Edinburgh—should that route be chosen. Even without faster journeys, however, we can make full use of possible improvements in the rail system. For example, better use needs to be made of the trains themselves. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) was right to compare UK fare levels with those in many continental European countries. Current UK fare levels with not result in the desired shift to the rail network. When that point is raised with Ministers, reference is made to the fact that if they are booked well in advance, very cheap train tickets for long journeys can be obtained, which is true. However, sometimes, particularly for journeys booked at short notice, it is much cheaper to fly than to travel by train. Bizarrely, trains will sometimes have many empty seats, even though tickets were being sold at the full price a few days before. At the very least, that suggests that the system for selling tickets is not flexible or efficient—compare that with some budget airlines where prices very much depend on the number of available seats. There is something wrong with the way that those train tickets are being sold, which needs to be addressed by the Government and those responsible for regulating the industry. A point was made about the improvements on the west coast main line. The Government deserve credit for the £10 billion—I think—invested in bringing that line up to standard, which has already brought many benefits south and north of the line. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley mentioned local services such as Doncaster to Manchester. One of the difficulties with the west coast main line is that we do not make full use of the opportunity to provide improved and faster services on routes from Edinburgh—although this is true generally of central Scotland—along the west coast to places and cities in north-west England and the west midlands. It is true that services on the east coast main line are generally good and fast—although I would welcome further improvements—but on the west coast main line, despite many fast services from Glasgow southwards, few direct services from Edinburgh are provided. Where direct services are provided, times are unacceptable—it normally takes longer to get from Edinburgh to Birmingham than from Edinburgh to London, and it takes almost as long to get from Edinburgh to Manchester as from Edinburgh to London. It is not possible to get a direct train from Edinburgh to Liverpool: if unlucky, one might be sent on a 10 or 15-minute walk across Wigan to catch a connecting train. Very few train services run from Edinburgh to Leeds. My story about Edinburgh could be told of other services from elsewhere in Scotland. As my hon. Friend pointed out, that represents a phenomenon that might apply to other parts of the country. Furthermore, such services, of course, compete with air services. For all sorts of reasons, it should not be attractive to anyone or necessary to undertake a journey from Edinburgh to Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds or Bradford by plane, yet many people have no alternative but to do so, because the rail services are not provided. There is a gap in the focus of the Government and, to some extent, of members of the Select Committee. I wonder whether that relates to some of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) about the way in which rail policy in England is integrated with cross-border services, which I believe remain a reserved responsibility of the UK Government. Rail in Scotland, including the sleeper services, is devolved, which I am in favour of. However, cross-border services throughout the UK are not given as much attention as they should in regulation by the UK Government. It is time for that situation to change. I shall give one or two brief examples of how that attitude is reflected in the White Paper. Page 17 contains a map of England and Wales. It reads:"““England and Wales have a well-developed network of strategic roads and rail links””." However, it does not go north of the border, which to a degree reflects the focus of the report. Someone may rightly point out that other maps in the White Paper show the whole of the Great Britain and its rail services—but they would be proving my point. For example, page 61 contains a map showing inter-urban service loading levels over future years. The lines from Edinburgh to Liverpool and Manchester and Leeds do not even appear. That reflects the kind of thinking that lies, in some places, behind the report. Page 21 of the White Paper states rightly:"““With certain exceptions…rail policy is a devolved matter in Scotland””." The next paragraph reads:"““The Government believes that the issues and trends raised in this strategy have important linkages with Scotland””" and that on them they should"““work closely with the devolved administrations””." That is true, but there is a danger in abdicating responsibility for Great Britain-wide services, when in fact there is a UK Government responsibility in such areas. I recognise much good in the White Paper. I am very enthusiastic about this morning's announcement, and I recognise what has been done on the west coast main line. However, we need to consider cross-border services, and services in the central belt to central and northern England region. These are major conurbations, not just small centres of population and they need more attention in the rail strategy. There may be a lack of focus because the two Administrations differ over the way in which they apportion responsibility for rail services. Services that run throughout Great Britain are the responsibility of the UK Government. Clearly, there must be co-operation between the Scottish and UK Governments. As someone who sees the benefits of a United Kingdom as opposed to those with a nationalist bent, I believe that we must address the issues across the UK. Will the Minister tell us how he will work with the Scottish Government to ensure that we address the UK-wide issues, the most important of which is how we can fund high-speed lines north of the border? I would have thought that because such a scheme is a UK-wide responsibility, it should be a UK-wide issue. Just as I was happy to see the funding for Crossrail provided from the UK purse, I hope that my colleagues further south will also be happy to see rail services throughout the UK also being funded from the UK purse.