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Sustainable Railways

I have just five quick points. First, I remind the House that there are only 316 days until Christmas, the period when the railway network shuts down for 58 hours. That issue comes before the House in the form of early-day motions every year, and we are the only nation in Europe which shuts its railway network down for that long a period. In many European nations, there are trains on Boxing day and on Christmas day, but I advocate that we look only at Boxing day. It seems unreasonable—for reasons of people travelling to meet their relatives, to go to the sales, football fixtures and, in some cases, to go to work—that there are no trains over that entire period. Although I am sure that we all love our relatives very dearly, 58 hours can be a long time. Some people also cannot leave London, for example, to go home to visit their relatives, because they have to be back at work first thing on 27 December, and there is no train to bring them back on Boxing day. Ministers have in the past given contradictory reasons: on the one hand, they have said that Network Rail has to undertake engineering works; on the other hand, they have said that everybody deserves Christmas off. They are contradictory reasons. The railways are public services and, certainly, on Boxing day, they should be running. Lord Adonis has said that he will meet me to discuss that topic, and I was pleased that, last Christmas, the major Opposition party said that they backed Boxing day trains. I hope that the Government will do so soon, too. Secondly, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough was passionate and strident about the issue of high-speed rail, and she was right. It is a big issue in Yorkshire. I stress upon the Minister that, for us in Yorkshire, God's own county, it is as big as Crossrail and the Olympics combined. It is that big an issue and, again, both Opposition parties are now committed to high-speed rail to Yorkshire and the north of England. The Government are moving on the issue, too. Indeed, in this Labour Government, we have the most pro-rail Transport Ministers whom we have ever had, so I feel confident that, before too long—before next Christmas and, certainly before the general election—we, too, will be unambiguously committed both to high-speed rail to Yorkshire and, I should like to think, to a high-speed trans-Pennine link. Lord Adonis has begun to think about that, and it would be a good step. Thirdly, I am a comparative moderate. I am much more new Labour than some colleagues who have spoken, and I do listen to Ministers, so I shall not call for the nationalisation of the railways. The next time somebody hands in the keys, however, it would be a moderate move to introduce a public sector comparator. On the south-east railways a few years ago, something similar happened: the franchise was handed back and it was run very efficiently in the public sector; but, it was then put out again to a franchise. It would be a very moderate step, indeed, if we had a public sector comparator for some railways, so that a value-for-money comparison could be made with private sector companies.