Late January Column

Written by Malcolm Bruce MP on Wed 30th Jan 2008

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Rail expensive and doesn't compete…

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At a time when air travel is experiencing disruption and delays it is worth underlining that the North of Scotland is not well served by service alternatives, especially rail, a matter I raised in the House this week.

I rarely if ever travel to London by rail - not because of any prejudice on my part - quite the contrary I enjoy rail journeys but because the journey time is prohibitively long for someone travelling to and from London every few days.

Speaking in a recent Westminster Hall debate, Malcolm Bruce called for improved rail links between North East Scotland & England.

I am therefore pressing the Government for their policy on improving the quality, reliability and competitiveness of existing services as well as their vision or lack of it for the future.

If you are planning a rail journey from the North East finding the best route and fare is not easy. Gone are the days when you can go into a ticket office and get the best advice.

To give an example my office priced a journey for a long weekend next month from Thursday- Monday starting from Huntly to Bristol. The cheapest price for one adult is a Saver Return at £168.30 on a restricted ticket. If you wanted to purchase an open ticket it would be £279.00 for a Standard Open Return. Quite a jump. However, you may be able to obtain a cheaper fare if you have the patience and time to investigate the single fares on offer too. If you do, you can eventually find a fare for £92 - again restricted to the trains specified.

Incidentally, this journey will take 10½ by train compared to 9 hrs 55 minutes for the 547 miles by road (according to the AA's route planner).

It is hardly surprising that people opt for cheap air travel when they can - especially as the three cross border train operating companies have some of the biggest fare increases and generate the most complaints.

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…And we lack the vision of the French

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Apart from delivering a more reliable service which offers better value for money the Government has shown no strategic vision for the future.

Where the French have built a network of very high speed trains and also intermediate links we offer an unreliable under-invested service.

For example there is a direct Eurostar summer service from London to Avignon which takes 5 and a quarter hours and costs £189 return. Paris to Marseille is a regular service, which takes 3 hours and 3 minutes and costs typically £36.50 return. London to Edinburgh is an even shorter distance yet has a minimum journey time of 4hours 12 minutes.

Yes it would cost a lot of money to follow the French example. Network Rail estimates £50 billion to build lines to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Wales.

Yet we are talking about a new Forth crossing costing £4.5 billion. If that money could be found by the Scottish Government then a Scotland UK strategic partnership could surely fund the billions needed over the next ten to 15 years to invest in our railways.

Nor should we accept that investment stops at Edinburgh and Glasgow. There is little benefit in cutting the journey time to Edinburgh to 2 and a half hours and find it takes longer to reach Aberdeen.

If the journey time for the 120 miles from Aberdeen to Edinburgh could be cut to around two hours then we might get close to a journey time to London that can compete with air.

So far the Government have ducked out of an investment that would provide a real legacy.

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Standing up for Scottish banknotes

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Malcolm Bruce recently raised the issue of universal acceptance for Scottish bank notes.

Last week I also made a stand for Scottish banknotes which enjoy a somewhat anomalous status.

They are issues by the Scottish clearing banks under the authorisation of the Bank of England yet they are not legal tender in the way Bank of England notes are.

I asked the Secretary of State to ensure their acceptance in England where they are increasingly being taken.

He stressed they are legal, accepted by English banks for no charge and should be acceptable everywhere. While that is helpful information and support it doesn't help those who face difficulties using the south of the border.

Maybe the Scottish banks should provide guidance on their notes to avoid difficulty and embarrassment. After all they account for a disproportionate share of UK banking.

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Afghanistan a different challenge from Iraq

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The International Development Committee of which I am chairman will shortly be producing two reports on the quite different conflicts in which the UK is engaged namely Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is clear that Iraq is a quite different situation than Afghanistan and may lead to different conclusions.

Our committee is quite clear that although Afghanistan is difficult and the outcome by no means certain there is a good reason for our involvement.

Security in the region and the wider world will benefit from a stable Afghanistan and talking poverty among the Afghan people can only be achieved in a stable and secure environment.

The challenge is to provide enough security to enable development to take place and bring down poverty.

Since the Taleban, two million girls have been enrolled in schools and basic health care covers most of the country.

This basic provision needs to be improved and capacity of the Afghan armed forces, police and local and national government improved.

This will only be achieved if the insurgency can be kept in check and the international and national agencies co-ordinate their activities better. It is , I believe, worth doing what we can to help.

The people of Afghanistan have seen so many changes of regime they see all of them as transitory and so hedge their bets.

Forthcoming elections represent a challenge and will inevitably see criticism focused on outsiders. If democracy were to fail and the Taleban to return our security would be threatened but progress for the Afghan people, especially women and girls would be reversed.

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Rules blunt excess of ambition?

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There is a certain irony in the fact that leading Labour politicians competing for internal elections have got themselves into so much difficulty over donations.

In the cases of Harriet Harman, Wendy Alexander and Alan Johnson the amounts are fairly small but nevertheless the rules were set up by the Labour Government so there is little excuse.

In the case of Peter Hain we are talking several donations totalling a very large amount and triggering a police investigation. He had no choice to resign and may not be back.

The irony is that in his youth Mr Hain was a hot headed young Liberal who advocated civil disobedience. As his political ambition grew he turned his back on that to seek high office as a pillar of the Labour establishment. He has lost office over an election he didn't win and didn't need to enter. Maybe he has been caught by an excess of ambition.