Contribution
My Lords, if I intervene at this point, it might enable the occupant of the chair to be free to speak to his own amendment. As the Committee can see, we are doing a bit of a Box and Cox exchange here. I must first declare an interest as a vice president of the Aln Valley railway, which will be well known to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. I thank him for tabling his Amendment 90. This is a necessary signal. There have been times in the recent history of the railways when there have been people in some management positions who did not like the heritage sector. That has changed significantly, not least because of the success to local economies and the popularity of the heritage sector, but we need to give that signal in some way.
My main purpose in standing is to speak to my own Amendment 105, which is on a different matter entirely: integrating road and rail transport. When the railways were nationalised, along with British Road Services and many bus companies, it was suggested that everything would be co-ordinated; trains and buses would meet each other and it would all work out beautifully. None of that happened. It was an abject failure: nationalisation did not secure co-ordination between different forms of transport.
If you travel around other countries, particularly in northern Europe, including countries that have public sector railways and those that have private sector railways, you will find that there is often a frequency and reliability of connections between trains and buses, and between buses and ferries, which enables people to plan their journeys with a degree of confidence. That confidence rarely exists in our own country. There is a general feeling that, if you are lucky, you might be able to get a bus from the station. The idea that the bus would be waiting for your train, and might wait five minutes if your train is five minutes late, is somehow alien to the system. The same is true in reverse, of course. There have been some improvements at Berwick station, which I use regularly. Important Borders bus services are integrated into the passenger information screen. You look at the screen and it will tell you that the next train is through Edinburgh and, after that, there is a bus to Galashiels. That is on the actual indicator screen, but that does not happen in many places.
In being so limited, it fails to provide for, first, the number of commuters who are affected by this—this amendment was suggested by the Association of British Commuters—who have to drive to the station. They therefore have to use their car when, really, their objective is to have a train journey to work. A bus connecting with the train would reduce their use of the car and discourage them from saying, “If I’m getting the car out, I might as well drive the whole way rather than use the railway”. It is also a disincentive for travellers visiting more distant places as tourists who cannot rely on a connecting bus, rail or ferry service. It is another of these things that could be included in the Bill not to create a complicated obligation, but to start signalling that we see it as something desirable that is likely to improve and increase the use of the railway.
This is a neglected area. Many other countries achieve a great deal more in this area than we have thus shown any sign of doing. I suggest that the Minister finds a way of encouraging bus-rail co-ordination, recognises it as an objective of the industry and realises that, without it. we are discouraging people from using trains.