Category: Transportation

The diary entry on 24 May 1966 in Barbara Castle’s diaries, The Castle Diaries 1964-1970.

Tuesday 24 May 1966

A vital day in the evolution of my policy. I met all three rail unions a BR’s headquarters in order to let Raymond [Sir Stanley Raymond] explain the proposed new rail network to them. My heart was in my mouth because I knew it meant the closure of 3,000 more miles of lines, although the outcome would be a network of 11,000 route miles instead of the 8,000 proposed in the second Beeching Report.

I told Raymond to pile on the positive side of the policy and he excelled himself. I told them I had got my colleagues’ agreement to the survey into railway finances and stressed this meant a subsidy – open and overt – to the railways, something we had refused to other nationalised industries like coal. I then asked for questions. There was a long silence while I waited, hardly daring to breathe. As last Sid [Sidney Greene] said slowly, “I am very pleased with what we have heard. Clearly there is going to be a very good future for the men who are left in the system. Our trouble is, as I expect you know, with the men who will not have a place in it. I know you think we are always moaning and are against change, but we have to deal with our members and we have to speak for those who are affected. I shall to moan a lot more, but nonetheless I am pleased with what we have heard and not least for the fact that we have had it all explained to us so fully in this way, not like when the Beeching Report came out – that blue book – and the first we heard of it was when a copy was put into out hands two hours before publication”.

The other unions leaders echoed him in turn, ASLEF saying almost pathetically, “You must help us with our members”. Tom Bradley played into my hands by asking how we proposed to get private hauliers to use the railways more. I launched into a passionate appeal for open terminals through which even Kelly sat silent, at a loss for a wrecking question. And I warned them that I was having trouble with TGWU who suspected I was favouring rail too much – so they had better hurry up and get as much on to rail as they possibly could while the going was good. In all a most encouraging afternoon.

The speech made by Barbara Castle, the then Transport Minister, in the House of Commons on 6 November 1967.

This debate is on the Queen’s Speech and our present discussion is geared to the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker) to the passage in the Gracious Speech relating to transport. In that Amendment the hon. Gentleman complains that the Government are not … concentrating on practical measures to improve conditions for the travelling public and for industry”. The passage in the Gracious Speech on which the hon. Gentleman bases this complaint reads: Legislation will be brought before you to provide for the better integration of rail and road transport within a reorganised framework of public control … That is an integration which has long been overdue and which the development of the container is making technically imperative.

The passage continues: … to promote safety and high standards in the road transport industry … Is not that a matter that will improve conditions for the travelling public and for the public in general, who have been complaining for years about the danger of “killer” lorries on our roads?

Then the Speech says: … to strengthen the powers of local authorities to manage traffic … Will any rational Member in this Chamber seek to claim that this will not be an important measure for improving the travelling conditions on the congested roads of our great cities? The hon. Gentleman did not have time for even a fleeting reference to it, although he asks the House to approve an Amendment condemning this whole paragraph.

The paragraph states, finally, that the legislation will: … reorganise the nationalised inland waterways with special emphasis on their use for recreation and amenity “. Is not that another matter in which the public is very interested indeed? The hon. Gentleman is always pressing me to produce my White Papers elaborating the different aspects of the Bill I shall be presenting to Parliament before very long. I gave him a White Paper on the inland waterways part at the beginning of September. I do not think that he has even read it, and today he has not made so much as a passing reference to it.

I will come in a moment to the perfunctory way in which he has dismissed another White Paper, which he has had in his hands all morning.—[Laughter.] Yes, I know—the hon. Gentleman is slow to pick up new ideas, but in the other part of his speech he was complaining that the ideas were not new at all, so I do not know what further time he needs to discuss it.

Before I leave that aspect of the argument let us get the roads expenditure position quite clear. The hon. Gentleman believes in economy. He believes in economy in new speeches, and we have had this same one of his time after time. Let me therefore deal once and for all with this aspect of his argument, which is at the heart of the comparison between the records of the previous Administration and this Government in this important sphere.

Under this Government, the total Exchequer expenditure on roads in the five years up to 1970 will be greater than that involved in the previous Conservative Government’s proposals—and let us remember that their proposals for the five years were merely paper plans. They had never got to the point of finding the money for them. They had never got to the point of having to turn a pre-election propaganda into concrete fact, but this is what we are doing.

Mr. Peter Walker rose—

Mrs. Castle Just a moment. This is what we are doing.

The fact is that in the seven years 1964–65 to 1970–71, a period for which the Labour Government will be responsible, Exchequer expenditure on new and improved roads in Great Britain will be in the neighbourhood of £1,600 million. The total public expenditure on new and improved roads in Britain will be about £1,850 million. We have had to find the money, and we have been doing so, and we shall be doing so faced merely by demands from hon. Gentlemen opposite that we should cut public expenditure.

Mr. Peter Walker Will the right hon. Lady explain why, in reply to a Question on 28th February of last year, the Parliamentary Secretary stated that, for the years 1965 to 1970, Exchequer expenditure would be £1,100,000 on new roads, yet in July, 1964, my right hon. Friend stated that expenditure would be £1,200,000 for the same period?

Mrs. Castle I assure the hon. Gentleman that the figures I have given exceed the proposal of the former Conservative Administration, just as the expenditure has exceeded it beyond all bounds. I remind the hon. Gentleman that this year alone—and let us talk about 1967–68—Exchequer expenditure on new and improved roads will be nearly double what it was in 1963–64, the last full period of Conservative Administration. That was the peak of their achievement after 13 years in office; and it really does not lie in the mouths of hon. Gentlemen opposite to keep bringing up this Tory charge.

The transport system which the Labour Government inherited required fundamental and practical improvement over the whole sphere. This was the approach which underlay last year’s White Paper. It is the approach which will dominate the Transport Bill, which will give effect to it—except, of course, to the ports issue, which, as has been explained, is a matter for separate legislation later in the lifetime of this Parliament.

After that, I part company with the hon. Gentleman because his main preoccupation on every possible occasion, both inside and outside the House, is to denigrate public ownership. The Labour Government’s approach is to recognise that public ownership must play a vital rôle in transport, and to ensure that the nationalised industries are given the right social and financial targets to enable them to play their rôles. The publication today of the White Paper on railway policy shows how successfully the Government are succeeding with that task.

It is no good the hon. Member for Worcester coming along with his sad story about morale in the railways. The constant propaganda of hon. Gentlemen opposite against the very concept of public ownership is one of the most damaging things that can be done to denigrate this publicly-owned industry. The fact is, of course, that the hon. Member for Worcester does not care about the railways. He does not care about any particular form of public ownership. My hon. and right hon. Friends, on the other hand, do care and we believe that the people of this country want to see their nationalised railways made a maximum success.

Sir Robert Cary (Manchester, Withington) Does the right hon. Lady recall that in our debate on 18th July, when we were discussing bus operators and road hauliers, she promised to publish a White Paper, to be laid in August, with the Bill to come in September? She has laid a White Paper today on the railways. Why has she not also laid a White Paper on bus operators and road hauliers?

Mrs. Castle I promised—I intend to keep this promise and I am in the process of keeping it—to lay detailed White Papers on the different aspects of the Transport Bill, before the publication of that Bill, so that the House fully understands the implications of what will be a very detailed Measure.

I have already produced two of the White Papers and the remaining two, including the one to which the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Sir R. Cary) referred, will be appearing during the next few weeks. I assure the hon. Gentleman that he will get it well in advance of the publication of the Bill; and I shall be only too glad to enlighten him and his hon. Friend the Member for Worcester about some of the implications of the P.T.A.s, which he is so anxious to mis-represent.

I have told the House that the details which I have circulated about my proposals are for consultation only. Those consultations have taken place. Ideas have been advanced and these have been adapted in the light of those consultations. The results of the consultations will appear in the White Paper for which the hon. Gentleman has asked and I certainly do not intend to anticipate that White Paper today.

The hon. Member for Worcester has really wasted an opportunity. Instead of repeating, almost verbatim, the speech which he made the last time we debated this subject, he might have given a little attention to the White Paper on railway policy, which, at last, should have enabled him to deal not with speculation but with fact. I appreciate that this document was available in the Vote Office only at 11 o’clock this morning. It was due for publication tomorrow, but when the Opposition chose today for this debate I thought it only courteous to expedite its publication. [Interruption.] If it had appeared tomorrow, when the debate was over, I can imagine what hon. Gentlemen opposite would have said.

Several Hon. Members rose–

Mrs. Castle I must get on. The Stationery Office worked overtime during the weekend to enable the House to have the White Paper in time for this debate.

I regret that the hon. Member for Worcester has seen fit to pay such perfunctory tribute to the outstanding work that has been done by the Joint Steering Group, under the chairmanship of the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. John Morris). However grudging hon. Gentlemen opposite may be, I assure them that the Government are deeply grateful to the group for the long and arduous months of work they have put in.

As for the date of publication, the simple position is this. Although it is true that the final Report of the Joint Steering Group—the Report in its final form—is dated September, that was only one part of the process. The Government had to consider the recommendations, decide their action on them and write and publish a White Paper; and this is, in fact, what we have done. It would be no good giving the House the Joint Steering Group’s recommendations without the Government’s reaction to them. To have produced that White Paper as quickly as we have is an indication of the sense of urgency which the Government feel about the railway situation, despite the frivolity of hon. Gentlemen opposite.

This has been a novel kind of inquiry. On the Joint Steering Group have been representatives of the railways, of Government Departments and from outside. We are particularly grateful to the independent members who have worked tirelessly without reward and who have given us of their wisdom and long experience. The inquiry is also a shining example of worker participation because on the group and contributing his ideas was a rank and file railway man, in addition to representatives of the railway trade unions, who submitted their experienced views. I pay tribute to the masterly way in which this work has been chaired by the Parliamentary Secretary. The House should recognise the calibre of the Morris Report and pay tribute to all concerned.

The hon. Member for Worcester is always complaining about the Government trying to keep things from the House. I assure him that we have been a great deal more forthcoming than the Administration who produced the Stedeford Report, not a word of which ever got published. Indeed, I have not even been allowed to see it, though a succeeding Minister. There has, therefore, been a very different practice between the two Administrations in handling what is a matter of widespread public interest.

All that the hon. Member for Worcester could find to say was that there had been Press leaks. He said that The Times had it all on 26th June. He wanted to know what the Government were doing about it, what was the point of having a White Paper and what was the point of publishing the Report. The July Report of the group did not exist on 26th June. So the report was not even accurate. Certainly, the Government’s decisions upon it did not exist at that time. So it is absurd for the hon. Gentleman to suggest that in some way I had leaked the matter to the Press.

I hope that the debate will now be concentrated on the White Paper and the indications that it gives of the kind of approach that we shall have in the Transport Bill. Let us look at what the White Paper says. It should be considered as one of the triumvirate. There will be other White Papers on the National Freight Corporation and the Passenger Transport Authorities, though the implications of the setting up of a National Freight Corporation on the finances of the railways are taken into account in Appendix B of the Report in the Annex, and also it is important to remember that the method of fixing the grants for the socially necessary lines will be appropriate whoever may become responsible for them.

Today’s White Paper concentrates on two aspects which are critical to any business—finance and management. If these two are right there is a good chance that the business, whether it is private or nationalised, will prosper, and unless they are right, it will not prosper. But the railways are not just a business. That was the mistake that right hon. and hon. Members opposite made when they voted for the 1962 Transport Act. To treat nationalised transport as a business or a series of businesses without taking account of the social aspects of a public service is not to have any real grasp of the needs of the travelling public.

The 1962 Act set up the railways as a separate entity, encouraged them to compete with other forms of nationalised transport and then left the profit and loss account as the sole criterion of success and did not even provide conditions in which the profit and loss account could be balanced. The Railways Board was early told to break even as soon as possible, but an open-ended grant was provided in case it failed. So it is not surprising that the deficit for the current year is almost as large as in 1962.

This fact is a complete indictment of the whole purpose and machinery of the 1962 Transport Act. It took no account of the social factors. It provided detailed machinery for closing lines but imposed no duty on the Minister to heed social considerations when deciding closures, still less the effect on the workers involved.

Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith (Glasgow, Hillhead) The right hon. Lady has made a charge—

Mrs. Castle I have not given way.

The Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher) Order. The hon. Member must resume his seat unless the Minister gives way.

Mrs. Castle I object to being harangued by the hon. Gentleman on his feet when I am on my feet. If he will behave courteously I shall be glad to give way.

Mr. Galbraith I am very grateful to the right hon. Lady. But she made a charge against the previous Administration when she said that social considerations were not taken into account. I can categorically deny that and would like her to accept it.

Mrs. Castle To the extent that they were taken into account they were in breach of the terms of reference of the 1962 Act. The hon Gentleman had better make it clear. The 1962 Act placed an obligation on the British Railways Board to break even as soon as possible. The very fact that the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) could not follow the logic of his own statute does not mean to say that that made the position any better. Indeed, I believe that one of the serious sources of the problems of the railway industry is that it has never been given any clear-cut financial target appropriate to the sort of social conditions that a railway business has to take into account as well.

During the 18 months from the publication of the Beeching Plan in March, 1963, and being swept out of office in October, 1964, the right hon. Member for Wallasey had already imposed on British Railways an annual burden of well over £1 million by refusing to consent to closures, which, therefore, showed the inconsistency of his own policy.

What we are doing—it is long overdue, and when the hon. Gentleman says that nobody outside approves of my policy I would tell him that every sort of financial and economic commentator has been asking for a very long time that this kind of separation of financial and social objectives should be carried through—is to recognise and face the fact that there are many railway passenger services which do not pay and cannot be made to pay but are an essential part of any foreseeable transport system.

This is what the White Paper is about. We said that, having decided that as a Government, and decided it as a point of principle, we ought to identify these services, consider whether they were of the right level, whether they should be increased or reduced, make sure that they run efficiently and then meet the full cost of any losses on these socially necessary lines, and meet that consciously as a community.

The Joint Steering Group’s Report, which is annexed to the White Paper, explains in detail the procedure which has been worked out. I think that every hon. Member who studies that Report—and no one ought to talk about transport policy in future unless he has—will agree that the procedure has been systematically and carefully evolved to enable us to get the benefits of a social element of transport policy without undermining financial incentives and efficiency. For instance, the Report suggests that these grants, instead of being paid in arrears, should be based on estimated losses three years ahead, with no repayment if the Railways Board does better than the estimates, and this is designed to give an incentive to the Railways Board to do even better than at first had been hoped.

Hon. Gentlemen opposite have frequently asked me for the estimated total cost of the grants, and I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman did not consider even mentioning it in his speech. The best estimates that the consultants and the Group can make of what would be the total of these grants in any one year is a figure of some £40 million in 1969, plus £15 million allowance for interest, making £55 million in 1969, and reducing to some £50 million in 1974.

This decision, which is in accord with the Government’s policy on nationalised industries, and is published in the White Paper, marks a major development in nationalised industry policy. No one in the House can talk about the need for greater efficiency in the Government or in the nationalised industries unless he fairly and squarely faces the fact that something of this kind had to be done. The hon. Gentleman who is so anxious to quote denigrations and attacks upon me might have paid a little attention to the leading article in The Times a day or two ago when it welcomed this new approach to the finances of the nationalised industries and said that it was imperative to their future efficiency that economic and social elements should be differentiated out from the financial ones.

Mr. Gordon Campbell (Moray and Nairn) Did the right hon. Lady also notice the leading article in the Scotsman last Thursday, saying, “For integration read disintegration”?

Mrs. Castle Yes, I read it. That leading article was applying to a wider field than just this. But I would tell the hon. Gentleman and the Scotsman that it is a curious definition of disintegration when the Government come along and say, “It is time the country established what size of railway network we need and then set about finding more intelligent ways of paying for it.” In my view, that is not disintegration. It is the first ray of rational light on this subject for many a long year.

The Report also provides for a capital reconstruction of the railway industry so as to give a really efficient target to the railways and provide the basis on which we can expect the railways to meet their charges, including interest, out of revenue by the early 1970s. Here again, a first-class expert job of work has been done by all concerned.

I think that it is helpful to the House to have had examined all the possible elements in railway costs that could be attributed to their social obligations. The Joint Steering Group, for example, examined the concept of stand-by capacity which the railways have argued for a long time as one of the excuses why they could not be expected to break even. The railways say, “The trouble with the public is that they want the railways, but only to use them very occasionally, so we should be compensated for an element of stand-by capacity.”

This the Report has rejected, but it does point to the existence of surplus capacity in the railway system due to the duplication of track in many places where a reduction of track would achieve dramatic economies. Reducing tracks from four to two and, in some cases, from two to one can make a major contribution to cutting costs.

Miss J. M. Quennell (Petersfield) The right hon. Lady keeps saying that the Report will be “useful” to the House. She has said that the Report was in the Vote Office at 11 a.m. I have been in the House all day and I did not know that it was available until I read about it in the mid-day edition of an evening newspaper. It was 2.15 when I got the Report, and it was not possible to read it sensibly before this debate.

Mrs. Castle I also took the precaution of informing the House, in a Written Reply on Friday, that the Report would be in the Vote Office at 11 a.m. today. I am only too anxious to give the House as much time as possible to study the Report, but it was not I who chose the subject of today’s debate. The best I could do was to expedite the White Paper as quickly as possible.

The Joint Steering Group’s Report therefore proposed—and I think that the House will agree that this is an imaginative and constructive suggestion—that the best way of helping to reduce costs and the deficit was for track rationalisation to be pressed ahead with the help of a track rationalisation grant which would taper off over the next few years.

The major part of the Group’s Report is the emphasis it lays upon the management question. When capital reconstruction has been carried through, even if the Railways Board begins by breaking even, we know that it will have a very tough job to maintain that position. That is why an integral part of the Report is the emphasis that it lays upon the need to have another look at the management structure of the railways.

As the House will have seen, the Report recommends a somewhat smaller Board whose members should not be tied down by day-to-day executive responsibilities for particular functions. This would leave the Board freer to concentrate on policy questions and on the long-term planning and financial control of the industry, helped by the appointment of two senior members of the Board with specific responsibility for these two aims, in addition to a chief general manager and a member responsible for long-term development of labour relations in the industry.

The Government broadly accept these recommendations, which, clearly, will involve a considerable reorganisation of the Board’s work. The hon. Gentleman raised with me the position of the chairman of the Board. I believe that this reorganisation must involve a change in the chairmanship and I am currently discussing with Sir Stanley Raymond the possibility of his taking another job in transport. The outcome of our discussions will be announced in due course.

As for the suggestion that there is some kind of breach between Mr. Philip Shirley and myself, I will tell the hon. Gentleman that Mr. Shirley resigned at his own request and that it was not as a result of any disagreement between him and me. I remind the hon. Gentleman that Mr. Shirley is, after all, a signatory of the Report which is in the Annex to the White Paper, and if there had been any such disgruntlement he would not have accepted my invitation to become a part-time member of the Board, which he has willingly done.

It is sad that the hon. Member had nothing to say about the merits of these proposals in the Joint Steering Group’s Report. If he claims that he has known for some time what was in the Report, then I should have thought that he would have been giving a little thought to it in all his consideration of the problems of the railway system. If he has known, as he says he has, that the Joint Steering Group—and I have announced this to the House on more than one occasion—was working on the principles of a social grant to keep alive the socially necessary lines, he has had plenty of time to decide first whether he approves of the Government’s proposals to pay such grants on the socially necessary services which do not pay their way and, secondly, what principle the Government should employ in fixing them.

The hon. Gentleman has challenged me more than once today. I challenge him now. It is not asking him very much, between 11 a.m. this morning—I saw that the hon. Gentleman had the Report; he got it personally—and 5 p.m., to decide whether he approves of the principle of paying grants on socially necessary lines which do not pay their way. Perhaps he will answer that one now.

Mr. Peter Walker I did not receive the Report at 11 a.m., but somewhat later. I will judge this question on the criteria to be used for these services. I want to know how they are to be paid for. I am violently against their being paid for out of the rates. What are “social criteria”? The term can mean anything. I am not willing to commit myself to the details of the Minister’s proposals until she has expressed them fully.

Mrs. Castle That will not do. The hon. Gentleman is dodging it. If he does not know what social criteria are, he should ask some of his hon. Friends behind him. Week after week they ask that railway lines be kept open in their areas. They say that they should be kept open because they serve tourism or remote areas, or because their constituents would not have alternative means of transport, or because the lines are heavily used by commuters or because they serve areas scheduled for future development and to which industry is being attracted.

Mr. Peter Walker If that is the right hon. Lady’s view, where do the 3,000 miles of railway track that she is closing fit into these social criteria? May we have the answer to that?

Mrs. Castle Certainly. The basic network published in the railway map some months ago was drawn up in full consultation with the regional economic planning councils and with the Government Departments concerned with development and the siting of new towns. All these factors were taken into account. But the 3,000 miles of line will still be subject to the full statutory procedure and it has been made clear that, as a result of the examination, some of these lines not marked for development in the basic map may be added to the “black line network”. That has been made clear to the hon. Gentleman time and again. Some pruning of duplicate lines as well as duplicate stations is not only inevitable, but desirable in the interests of railwaymen themselves who have to live in an industry that ought to be able to afford them higher standards.

We need to find a balance between complete sentimental sterilisation of the status quo and an adjustment of the policy of drastic reduction which we would have been faced with under the 1962 Transport Act. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well what are the social criteria. He knows perfectly well that there are lines which the right hon. Member for Wallasey refused to close and other lines which his hon. Friends would like to Government to refuse to close.

The question we now have to ask ourselves is, if, as a result of these examinations and the will of Parliament, some of these lines are to be kept open and will not pay their way, is it or is it not right that they should be included in the operating deficit of the Railways Board? Should they not rather be put into a separate account, carefully costed by the Ministry and the Railways Board, and have a proper grant affixed to them, the Government deciding to pay that grant? That policy will be widely welcomed by the travelling public and by railwaymen as one of the most practical contributions which the Government can make. It is a great pity that the hon. Member is still back in his July speech and has not moved a step further forward despite all the information and evidence we keep putting in front of him.

So much for this Government’s interest in efficiency of the nationalised industries. There was not a word of praise from the hon. Member, although we are debating the references in the Queen’s Speech, for our intention through the computer licensing Bill to establish a licensing system for motor vehicle licensing and driver licensing. This is something which is urgently needed and which was welcomed by The Times Business Supplement. It reported that car dealers have to deal with 183 local authorities and they are expected to welcome this proposal as a practical contribution to the transport problem, but there was not a word from the hon. Member about it.

There was not a word from him about our White Paper on the inland waterways which, once again, has taken the chaotic, muddled situation left by the previous Administration and clearly separated the commercial from social activities. This is what a Socialist transport policy means and it makes practical sense. There was not a word by the hon. Member about all the other practical contributions we have made. He is concerned and obsessed about the conditions of the passenger transport authorities. As I said earlier, we shall discuss this matter in the light of the White Paper. I certainly do not intend to anticipate the outcome of the consultations, which will be reported fully to the House in that document.

In conclusion, I refer to one very practical activity in which the passenger transport authorities will be engaged. One of them is proposed for the Manchester area, S.E.L.N.E.C. area. The need for integration of road-rail services there, for something to be done practically and urgently to improve transport conditions for people using public transport, is demonstrable to anyone who ever tries to travel in that city.

No one knows this more than Manchester City Council. That is why it gladly engaged with us in the promotion of a rapid transport study towards the possibility of which we paid a grant of 75 per cent. That is something else practical done in this matter by this Government. The report is now available and will be published tomorrow. A Question is to be asked of me about it and I shall be giving fuller details. It begins to hold out exciting possibilities of a breakthrough in the improvement of public transport.

I merely say to the hon. Member—this is another of the practical things we have done to which he never troubles to refer —that my new power to pay capital grants towards the cost of new public transport authorities, a power I shall be seeking in the Transport Bill, will enable me to contribute to the cost of new major transport projects in Manchester, provided they form part of a comprehensive transportation plan.

Here we have been acting while the hon. Member has merely talked. That is why I say to the House that the local authorities, whatever the hon. Member may try to do, will welcome these passenger transport authorities and cooperate with them because they know that what is needed are practical measures and that they are getting them from this Government.

The statement made by Barbara Castle, the then Minister of Transport, in the House of Commons on 15 March 1967.

When the House debated transport policy last month I was able to report on the progress which the Chairman of the Railways Board and I had made on the determination of the new basic railway network. I am now glad to be able to tell the House that the network has been decided. A detailed map of the network, with an explanatory foreword by the Chairman and myself, will be available in the Vote Office at 11 o’clock.

In deciding which lines should be included I have taken account of my consultations with the planning Ministers, with the Economic Planning Councils, and with the railway unions. Above all, I have given full weight to the Government’s determination that broader social and economic needs, not just narrow profitability, should count when it comes to national decisions on priorities. The result is a basic network of about 11,000 miles—some 3,000 miles longer than the likely outcome of the policy of the last Administration.

This will be a network of which the industry, and the country, can be proud. In itself, it will give a much-needed boost to railway efficiency and morale, but the Chairman and I do not intend that these 11,000 miles should simply remain in being; they must be a working system, continually developed with the aid of modern research and technology: and I shall see that this is done.

The Railways Board will now be reviewing the future of the lines outside the basic network. For these lines, it will be up to the Board to publish passenger closure proposals under Section 56 of the Transport Act if it so decides. But I would remind the House that no such line will be closed without my individual consent, and only after a full examination by the Transport Users Consultative Committees and the Economic Planning Councils of the hardship and economic planning implications.

The basic network is a landmark in carrying out the railway policy set out in the Government’s White Paper. It will help the railways to provide an efficient and flexible service to the public, fitted to the needs of the day. The Government are determined that a revitalised railway industry should play its full part in the integrated transport system of the country. This network will give them the right infrastructure to do it.

Mr. Webster Is the right hon. Lady aware that it has been a growing practice, since morning Sittings began, to make Statements which are palatable to Government supporters in the afternoon and those which are unpalatable to them in the morning? Is she further aware that it is a monstrous discourtesy to the House to make a Statement at 10 o’clock, when the map which we are discussing, if we are to have any substance out of this Statement, will not be published for another 50 minutes, and that this is something which all my hon. Friends will wish to probe most deeply in relation to what is happening in their regions?

How does the right hon. Lady propose to maintain lines which are running at a loss? To what extent will the local authority contribute and to what extent will the central Government? What sanctions does she propose to use if a local authority does not contribute, and how will she undertake to keep these lines going if they are running at a loss? Is she further aware that, for every seven miles closed in the period 1951–64, she is closing 10 miles under her present proposals?

Mrs. Castle I cannot accept for one moment that this statement is unpalatable to Government supporters. On the contrary, they realise full well the plans which were afoot under the policy of the previous Administration for a constant contraction of our railway service to a mere skeleton of a system—

Several Hon. Members rose—

Mrs. Castle Hon. Gentlemen must not jump up at this stage. The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster) has asked me half a dozen questions and I must take some time to answer them. Of course, when the railway map is available for detailed consideration, it will be open to any hon. Member to put down any Questions or to probe in any way he likes, and I shall be only too delighted to try to deal with any particular points.

The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare asked how unprofitable lines will be paid for. We have discussed this matter in the House; it was referred to in the White Paper and it was discussed in the debate on transport policy. There is at the moment a joint study going on between the Railways Board and myself, under a steering committee, of which the Joint Parliamentary Secretary is Chairman, and the job of which is to identify these socially necessary unprofitable lines and decide the amount of subsidy that will be necessary. We have made it clear that the Government, having adopted a policy of maintaining socially necessary lines—even if they do not pay—must, the Government having made that decision, give an open subsidy for those lines; and I am sure that the majority of hon. Members welcome this decision.

The position regarding local authorities has already been outlined in the White Paper. We will be moving forward towards the creation of conurbation transport authorities and—

Sir G. Nabarro On a point of order. Is it not a fact that, in accordance with the custom and tradition of this House, you ask for supplementaries to be brief, Mr. Speaker? That being so, should you—

Mr. Manuel Sit down.

Sir G. Nabarro I was asking, Mr. Speaker—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker Order. There is too much morning enthusiasm.

Sir G. Nabarro Are we to have inflicted upon us by Ministers long answers of this type? Cannot Ministers be brief, as back benchers are asked to be brief?

Mr. Speaker Order. I allow a certain amount of latitude or longitude to the Front Bench spokesmen.

Sir G. Nabarro There is too much longitude.

Mrs. Castle As I have had a number of questions inflicted on me by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare—[Interruption.]—presumably he wants them answered. It is intolerable if, when I am attempting to answer them, hon. Gentlemen opposite complain.

I was explaining, regarding local authorities, that the new transportation authorities, under the new arrangements for the general help which the Government are giving to public transport, will take over responsibility for deciding which socially necessary lines they want as part of their local transport plans. In such a situation, the responsibility for maintaining those lines could gradually transfer to the local authorities. In the meantime, the subsidy will be a Government subsidy, although we leave it open to individual local authorities to approach the Railways Board and try to negotiate the retention of a purely local line on the basis that they will meet the particular subsidy.

Mr. Manuel Is my right hon. Friend aware that there will be no discourtesies or competition for discourtesy from this side of the House arising from her statement? Is she aware that we welcome it and that we are, by it, redeeming some of the pledges which we made at the General Election? Is she aware that one of the important results of her statement will be the heartening effect it will have on railway workers throughout the country? I assure my right hon. Friend that she will have the full backing of the influential railway trade unions in this matter.

Mr. Speaker Order. Even compliments must be phrased in an interrogatory form.

Mrs. Castle I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those remarks.

Mr. John Hall The Minister has made an important and interesting statement. Would not she agree—and, as a constituent of mine, I am sure that she will agree—that it is difficult to be sure exactly what she is stating without our having the advantage of having looked at the map first? I cannot believe that it is possible for any hon. Member to say unreservedly that he welcomes her statement without having seen the effect of it by having looked at the map. Would it not have been more convenient to the House—I say nothing about discourtesy because I am sure that the right hon. Lady would not treat the House in a discourteous manner—if the map had been published earlier, instead of at 11 o’clock, and her statement made this afternoon, since we would then have been able to examine the matter more closely, and—

Mr. Speaker Order. Questions must be brief.

Mr. Hall Would not the right hon. Lady agree that we would have been able to examine the matter more closely and been able to ask questions more intelligently than we are able to do without the map?

Mrs. Castle It is possible to welcome unreservedly the two principles which I have laid down. The first is that the Government do not believe that we can have a satisfactory railway network in Britain on the basis of purely commercial considerations. This is, therefore, a fundamental change of policy and, on that principle, hon. Members can make up their minds. The second point to be welcomed is the fact that we are going to give a period of stabilisation to the railway industry on the basis of a railway network which is about 3,000 miles longer than it would otherwise have been.

To answer the hon. Gentleman’s question about the availability of the map, even if it had been released earlier, this is inevitably such a detailed subject that at this stage it is possible to discuss only the broad principles. However, it will be open to hon. Members to put down Questions about details of the matter in the normal way.

Mr. Tudor Watkins Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Central Wales line was examined by the T.U.C.C. about five years ago? Is it her intention that this line should again be examined by herself and the T.U.C.C.?

Mrs. Castle Yes, Sir, that is so. The Central Wales line will be one of the lines on the map for further consideration. However, I repeat that those lines on the man which are not included in the basic network will not necessarily all be closed. They are simply lines which need further examination so that we can see whether they should be retained, whether they should be modified or whether alternative methods can be found to cater for the people of the area.

Mr. Peyton Would not the right hon. Lady agree that it is rather odd for her to have made a statement like this without hon. Members having the map, particularly since the map will be available in only half on hour’s time? I do not wish to accuse the right hon. Lady of discourtesy, but I urge her not to follow the example of some other members of the present Administration, and to show at least some courtesy to the House of Commons.

Accepting all she says about socially necessary things, is she aware that one socially necessary thing always competes against another socially necessary thing for the limited resources that are available? Will she, therefore, when making her judgments about what is necessary, at least bear in mind and examine carefully those instances where local authorities press for the preservation of a line—[HON. MEMBERS: “Too long.”]—I apologise to the Minister for the barking that is coming from her hon. Friends; it is making my question that much longer—at the same time as they maintain an uneconomic bus service in competition with it?

Mrs. Castle I naturally do not want to be discourteous to the House, and did not think that I was being discourteous. It is quite normal practice for a Minister to make a statement and to draw attention to material that is being placed in the Vote Office. I repeat that this is inevitably a detailed matter which could not possibly, even if the map were available now, be examined in great detail in the form of question and answer following a statement.

As to what is socially necessary, we of course recognise that there must be a balance here—a balance on the basis of social cost benefit. This is the principle that we are bringing into our consideration of these lines. One factor which we shall take into account—it is important that we should, because this country cannot afford to throw money about just for the fun of it—in examining the grey lines on the map is to consider what are the alternatives and whether a more integrated local policy might be able to make the line pay.

Mr. Dalyell Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the broader social and economic considerations in central and south Scotland? Is she in a position to say anything about the Edinburgh—Carlisle line?

Mrs. Castle As my hon. Friend is no doubt aware, the Edinburgh—Carlisle line has already been proposed for closure and is already coming under the normal examination. [HON. MEMBERS: “Oh!”] This preceded the publication of the map, and whether in the end the Edinburgh—Carlisle line finishes up as one of the parts of the stabilised network must depend on the outcome of this examination.

Mr. Alasdair Mackenzie While there is no reference to Scotland in the Minister’s statement, we welcome the fact that it says that social and economic needs will be considered in coming to decisions on closures, and so forth. Is she aware that this affects my part of the country, the Highlands of Scotland, very much? I should like an assurance from the right hon. Lady that there will be no further rundown in railway services in the Highlands of Scotland, because we are at the moment suffering a great deal on account of the rundown that has taken place in the past.

Mrs. Castle I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be delighted to know that as a result of my reversal of the previous Administration’s policy, the line routes included in the basic network map include the Perth-Thurso line, which would have disappeared, the Aberdeen-Inverness line, which would have disappeared, the Helensburgh-Oban line, which would have disappeared, and a number of others.

Mr. Speaker Mr. Mendelson.

Mr. Mendelson rose—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker Order.

Mr. Manuel On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I ask, with the greatest respect to you, why, if hon. Members on this side seem to be pulled up right away, hon. and right hon. Members opposite get the utmost liberty to throw remarks about in this Chamber.

Mr. Speaker I call to order hon. Members who are misbehaving when I notice them. I happened to notice the hon. Member concerned. Mr. Mendelson.

Mr. Mendelson I should like to ask about the decisions which my right hon. Friend reserves to herself after these matters have been before the Economic Development Council. Would she bear in mind that a conflict is developing between the actual need to save on certain local lines and the future economic development of the areas they serve? The general policy of the Cabinet to have diversity of industry and new industries in certain old industrial areas is now being contradicted by the decision to close or drastically revise certain lines that should be kept open on economic grounds.

Mrs. Castle I am very acutely aware of the need to take into consideration possible industrial and housing development in an area. This is one of the facts which should be very much taken care of by the Economic Planning Councils, and the basic map has been drawn up in consultation with them. The responsibility for the final network is mine, but the councils with this kind of idea in mind, have put many proposals to me to which I have responded in drawing up the basic network. I repeat that when we examine the closures which will have to be considered in the next few months, I shall have this very much in mind as well.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor As the present Government have either closed or plan the closure of 4,991 miles of railway line compared with 3,480 miles in the 13 years when the previous Government were in power, does not the right hon. Lady agree that it is outrageous that we should have this statement made without the map? Why could the map not have been given to us by 10 a.m., in time for her statement?
Will the right hon. Lady also—

Mr. Speaker Order. Supplementary questions must be brief.

Mr. Taylor —try to explain what is meant by gradually transferring the burden to local authorities? Does this mean that the 11,000 miles target can be achieved only if ratepayers in certain areas accept a further heavy burden? If so, is this wise in view of the already heavy burden that exists?

Mrs. Castle I hope that we can nail once and for all the mythology that hon. Members opposite had tried to build up about closures. The truth is that more mileage was planned for closure in the last year of Conservative government than there has been in the whole life of this Government. The right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) merely refused 10 closures during his period of office; my right hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Tom Fraser) and I refused 29 in our two years of responsibility. Hon. Members will be able to see perfectly clearly what we have done in fixing this basic network to reverse a situation under which, under the logic of the policy of the previous Administration, we should have had something like 4,800 passenger miles left on our railway network. That was a fact, and this is the policy we have reversed.

As to local councils, the answer to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) is that it does not mean that the preservation of 11,000 route miles depends on the ratepayers’ carrying this burden.

Dr. John Dunwoody May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on allaying the doubts and anxieties that have hung over the railway industry since the days when the present Opposition were in power? Can she assure the House that the basic railway network as it is to be published will remain for the foreseeable future? Will she agree that if local authorities are to play a part in financing the maintenance of unprofitable branch lines, it may mean some changes in the criteria by which the central Government support local government? Will she consider consulting her right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government with this end in view?

Mrs. Castle I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As a result of this reversal of policy, new hope is being brought to the South-West, because included in the basic network will be the Plymouth-Penzance line, the Salisbury-Exeter and Okehampton-Barnstaple line, and the Castle Cary-Dorchester line. These are some of the examples of what will be in the basic network map. I can assure my hon. Friend that no proposals for the closure of any lines now in the basic network will be made in the foreseeable future.

On the local authority point, quite clearly it would be ridiculous to transfer to existing local authorities the Exchequer burden that we are openly taking here. There must be a move towards the creation of wider transport authorities in the context of the grant policy for public transport as a whole before a transfer of the burden could even be contemplated. In addition, I repeat that some local authorities have said that there are purely local lines that might otherwise be closed under Section 56 but which they want a chance to try to keep open by local subsidy. I have made it clear that if they want to do that, it will be open to them to negotiate with the British Railways Board.

Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker Order. We must cut down the length of supplementary questions and answers if possible. Sir John Eden.

Sir J. Eden Before leaving this matter, Mr. Speaker, may we hear from the right hon. Lady at what time the map was given to the Press?

Sir G. Nabarro Having regard to the open-ended subsidy to which the Minister referred, whatever that jargon may mean, has she calculated what this will add to the existing rate of loss on the railways of £130 million per annum, when she abandons a commercial enterprise in favour of a Ministry of Social Security exercise?

Mrs. Castle Hon. Members opposite had better make up their minds whether their objection is that I am to subsidise too much or whether it is that no lines are to be closed at all. This has been the duplicity of the policy of hon. Members opposite for years—[Interruption.]—and it has bedevilled the case—

Mr. Barber On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for the Minister to accuse hon. Members on this side of duplicity?

Mr. Speaker I think that the right hon. Gentleman is being unduly sensitive.

Mrs. Castle It is—

Hon. Members Withdraw.

Mr. Speaker Order. We should be able to proceed more quietly.

Mrs. Castle It is this which has be-devilled the creation of a proper railways policy. I do not know what the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) means by his reference to “open-ended subsidy”. I have made it clear that, on the contrary, in every case where the Government decide that a line is socially necessary, the joint survey to which I have referred will examine in great detail what economies can be brought into play in order to reduce the loss before deciding the size of the contribution which has to be made on social grounds by the Government.

This will not add to the deficit of the Board, because the position at the moment is that, where closures are refused, the cost falls on the deficit anyhow. The right hon. Member for Wallasey refused certain closures on the one hand, while, on the other, lecturing the Railways Board about the need to pay its way. No one could hope in that way to get an efficiency target for British Railways that it could hope to reach.

Mr. Ridley On a point order, Mr. Speaker. May we take it that my right hon. and hon. Friends will be allowed to ask longer supplementary questions in view of the disproportionate amount of time being taken by the right hon. Lady’s answers?

Mr. Speaker I have already commented on that matter.

Mrs. Castle The trouble is that I get such long questions, so I have to give long answers.

Sir G. Nabarro On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. That jibe was directed at me. Is it not a fact that my supplementary question was a masterpiece of brevity?

Mrs. Castle Well, it certainly was not a masterpiece of sanity.

Sir G. Nabarro You have constantly ruled, Mr. Speaker, that supplementary questions should be brief. If my supplementary question had not been brief, you would have been on your feet in a split second. But you made no attempt to halt my question, which was a masterpiece of brevity. Would you, therefore, ask the right hon. Lady to withdraw her shocking innuendo that my supplementary was insane and not brief?

Mr. Speaker The last question is not part of the hon. Gentleman’s point of order, the first part of which was a statement of fact.

Sir G. Nabarro You agree with it?

Mr. Speaker Order. The hon. Gentleman must contain himself a little. We must get on.

Sir J. Eden Has the right hon. Lady made any assessment of the likely increase to the taxpayer of the Government’s policy?

Mrs. Castle Perhaps I should explain what happens if a closure is refused even though the line is losing money. This cost falls on the deficit, although it is the Government and Parliament who have decided that the line should remain open. In such a situation, it is obvious common sense to have a separate social account so that, Parliament having willed a line to be kept open, Parliament will put it not on the deficit but under a special social subsidy. The amount involved cannot be foreseen until the joint survey has examined each socially necessary line, what economies can be made and what size of subsidy will be required.

The text of the 1968 Transport Act, as enacted, with regards to railway closures.

54 Railway closures

(1)In discharging any of his functions under subsection (8) or (10) of section 56 of the Act of 1962 or under subsection (5) of this section in relation to, or to a proposal by the Railways Board or the London Board for, the discontinuance of all railway passenger services from any station or on any line (hereafter in this section, as in that section, referred to as a closure), the Minister shall have regard to any matters which for the time being appear to him to be relevant, including any social or economic considerations, and shall not give his consent to a proposed closure—

(a)unless he is satisfied that a reasonable opportunity has been afforded for the making to the Minister of representations with respect to the closure by or on behalf of persons who are employed by the Board concerned for the purposes of, or in connection with, the services in question and who appear to the Minister to be likely to be directly affected by the closure ; or

(b)before he has considered any representations made while that opportunity remains available which he is satisfied are either made by such persons as aforesaid or made on behalf of such persons by an organisation appearing to him to represent such persons.

(2)In the case of a proposed closure of a station from which, or of a line on the whole or part of which, railway passenger services fall to be provided by the Railways Board in pursuance of an agreement under section 20(2)(b) of this Act with the Executive for an area designated under section 9(1) thereof, the Board shall not publish a notice of that closure in pursuance of subsection (7) of the said section 56 without the consent of that Executive to its publication ; and if the Board publish the notice before obtaining that consent, the notice shall be of no effect unless before the expiration of the period fixed by the notice for objecting to the closure either—

(a)the Executive have informed the Board in writing that they consent to the publication ; or

(b)the Minister, on an application made for the purpose by the Board, whether before or after the publication of the notice, and after affording the Executive what the Minister considers a reasonable opportunity to make any representations, has directed that the notice shall have effect notwithstanding that the Executive have not consented to its publication ;

but the giving by the Executive of their consent to publication of a notice in pursuance of the said subsection (7) shall not affect the right of the Executive under subsection (4) of this section to oppose the closure.

(3)Where, in the case of any proposed closure, subsection (2) of this section does not apply but the proposal is for the closure of a station, or of the whole or part of a line, which is situated within an area designated as aforesaid, the Railways Board shall send to the Executive for that area a copy of the notice of the closure published by the Board in pursuance of the said subsection (7).

(4)Where, in the case of any closure to which subsection (2) or (3) of this section applies, notice of the closure has been published by the Railways Board in pursuance of the said subsection (7) (not being a notice which under the said subsection (2) is of no effect), the Executive concerned may, within the period specified in the notice for objecting to the closure, lodge with the Minister a statement in writing that they oppose the closure and of their reasons therefor; and where the Executive lodge such a statement with the Minister they shall send a copy of that statement to the Board and, notwithstanding that no objection is lodged in accordance with subsection (8) of the said section 56, the closure shall not be proceeded with until the Minister has given his consent.

(5)In the case of any closure requiring the consent of the Minister under the said section 56 or under subsection (4) of this section—

(a)the Minister may give his consent subject to such conditions as he thinks fit, including conditions to be complied with after the closure ;

(b)the Minister may from time to time vary or revoke the conditions for the time being required to be complied with in connection with the closure, whether the closure took place before or after the coming into force of this subsection;

(c)those conditions may include conditions as to the provision of alternative services by, or by a subsidiary of, the Bus Company or the Scottish Group, or by some other person whether in pursuance of arrangements made by the Bus Company or the Scottish Group or otherwise; and

(d)whether before or after the closure, and whether the closure took place before or after the coming into force of this subsection, the Minister may from time to time give such directions to the Railways Board or, as the case may be, the London Board and to the Bus Company, and the Secretary of State may from time to time give such directions to the Scottish Group, as he thinks fit in connection with the closure;

and where any such condition or direction relates to the provision or assistance in the provision of alternative services, the Minister or, where those alternative services are to be provided by, or by a subsidiary of, or in pursuance of arrangements made by, the Scottish Group, the Minister and the Secretary of State acting jointly may refer to an Area Committee within the meaning of the said section 56 any matter relating to those services, and the committee shall consider and report on that matter to the Minister or, as the case may be, to the Minister and the Secretary of State.

(6)Where any condition or direction such as is referred to in subsection (5) of this section requires the provision of alternative services by, or by a subsidiary of, the Bus Company or the Scottish Group or in pursuance of arrangements made by that Company or that Group, the cost of providing those alternative services shall be borne by that Company or, as the case may be, that Group.

(7)For the purposes of subsections (5) and (6) of this section any conditions imposed under subsection (11) of the said section 56, so far as still required to be complied with immediately before the coming into force of the said subsection (5), shall have effect as if imposed under the said subsection (5).

(8)Paragraphs 9 and 10 of Schedule 7 to the Act of 1962 (which contain spent transitional provisions with respect to matters pending at the date of the coming into force of the said section 56) shall cease to have effect.