Rail 2020

Debate between Kelvin Hopkins and Ben Gummer

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

The hon. Lady did not admit to the role of the private sector when I spoke to her about German railways. Of course, there is a role for the state—that is what we are discussing. Any railway has a necessary monopoly: only one train can travel at a time and it has to be owned by somebody. Unlike road, it is not possible for two trains to travel on the same track at the same time, so the state has to intervene at some point in order to regulate and subsidise, as it does with road travel.

We have seen the results of privatisation since 1995. Rail travel has increased by 133%. It is at a higher rate than in the 1920s in absolute numbers. Rail freight has also increased to a point that would have been impossible to imagine in the 1960s and 1970s.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The hon. Gentleman is raising, yet again, a correlation, not a cause and effect. Railway usage has gone up despite privatisation, not because of it.

[Ben Gummer]

The hon. Gentleman is a marvel of this House and is respected deeply by many Members on both sides of the House. However, he must see that the graphs of declining rail use up to 1995, for both freight and passenger, were turned on their heads after privatisation. That is not just a correlative effect, but a causal one.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Kelvin Hopkins and Ben Gummer

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

The hon. Lady asks about the party manifesto. I had hoped to discuss the broader issues and great challenges facing us. Manifestos are, by their nature, broad brush, and this is such a tiny change to the tax system in the grand scheme of what the Treasury has to deal with. It is entirely right that the Government are, bravely, addressing it now. In all honesty, would either party go down to such detail in any future manifesto? It is entirely right that the Government are saying, “This is an anomaly. It is incorrect and unfair, and what is more, it is one of the many anomalies that are unaffordable in the long term.”

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I hear time and again the Government saying that things are unaffordable and raising spectres of vast pensions bills in the future. This is a simple matter of transferring money from one group of people to another—namely, from the rich to the less rich. Were the abolition of the 83p rate by Mrs Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe and of the 60p rate by Nigel Lawson and getting rid of the 15% surcharge on unearned income all anomalies?

[Ben Gummer]

I profoundly respect the hon. Gentleman. He is a torchbearer for a former age in the Labour party, and he should raise that point with his own Front-Bench team. We are clearly not going to agree on it. However, at some point, someone needs to face up to the fact that we will almost double spending on old-age pensions between now and 2040. I shall put that in context: the number of people retiring this year who will be alive in 2041 will be more significant than now. I cannot give the precise figure, but hundreds of thousands of people retiring in the next few years will be alive in 20 or 30 years. We are not only dealing with an intergenerational problem, with a problem between this generation and a generation in two or three generations’ time or with a problem between people in their 20s and those in their 60s or 70s; we are dealing with a problem of those retiring now and to whom we must promise pensions and a decent standard of living in 30 years’ time. The ability to afford that is at the crux of the Government’s reforms, and this proposal is just the start of it.