Public Bodies (Abolition of the Railway Heritage Committee) Order 2013

Lord Snape Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Faulkner. He has worked tirelessly on railway heritage. If it was not for him, we would now be in a complete mess. I was very surprised to hear the Minister say that the Railway Heritage Committee was a good example of voluntary work that has now been moved to the Science Museum. He said that it had had a bit of administrative support from the Science Museum before, or that it now has it. I cannot see what the difference is between them. It is moving the deckchairs for the sake of it. I suspect that it will cost more and do exactly the same thing; where is the benefit? My noble friend Lord Grocott talked about old steam engines. A month ago I went round the National Railway Museum in New Delhi, where most of the engines, as he said, were built in this country—largely in Glasgow—and they were very fine. I hope that this tradition continues. Of course, they now build very good engines of their own in India.

Having listened to the Minister’s explanation, which I believe lasted a good seven minutes, and to the story that my noble friend Lord Faulkner told about the work that he had to do just to move things across to the Science Museum, I am afraid that my only conclusion is: thank God he was there to do it. It will be fine in the future when the next Labour Government make things better, but this is a classic case of dogma ruling brain when it started. As my noble friend Lord Grocott said, I hope that it is not repeated.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, I, too, join in the general chorus of discontent about the actions of the Government today. I support my noble friend Lord Faulkner and agree with his very able speech about the need to care for railway artefacts and his description of the work that the Railway Heritage Committee has done over the years. I have no personal interests to declare except that in the 1980s, along with the late Robert Adley, I served on the advisory committee to the Railway Heritage Committee, which was newly formed at that time. The work that it has done over the years is enormously commendable.

Some of the reminiscences—if I may put it like that—of my noble friend Lord Grocott apply to railway installations all over the world. However, there are many such installations still in the United Kingdom, which the Railway Heritage Committee would have been interested in seeing properly preserved. I do not suggest for a moment that transferring these matters to the Science Museum will necessarily adversely affect the future of railway heritage. However, I am conscious, as your Lordships will be conscious, that the Science Museum has lots of other things with which to concern itself. The great thing about the Railway Heritage Committee is precisely that it was concerned about our railway heritage, and worked to preserve that which we still enjoy at present and which future generations should also enjoy. I deplore and regret any diminution of that concern for our railway heritage as a result of this order.

I suspect, as did my noble friend Lord Grocott, that some civil servant somewhere drew up a list of quangos to be abolished and this one found itself on there. Even at this late hour, I urge the Government to think again. As a railwayman myself, and the son of a railwayman, I feel strongly about our railway heritage. I have bored your Lordships previously with stories about my own railway career. I point out that there are still artefacts—they can still be regarded as such—in use on the present-day modern railway which are well worth preserving. I am not sure I would have the ability, or that the Science Museum would have the time or patience, to listen to the case for preserving them. For example, there are signal boxes in the Stockport area, where I spent the early part of my career, which were built by the London and North Western Railway in the 1880s, and which still signal trains today. Do I approach the Science Museum when eventually those signal boxes are abolished, to say that these are part of our railway heritage, and ought to be kept?

I might say in passing that, although those of us who travel regularly on the west coast main line are familiar with the litany of equipment failures—“failure of lineside equipment” seems to be the stock response to any delays—that does not happen in the Stockport area. Thanks to the London and North Western Railway, which installed those signal boxes in 1888, they still do not have any problems, all these years later, in passing Pendolino trains through the town of Stockport. If we are properly to preserve that sort of railway heritage, we might need a wider scope than saying, “We will leave these matters to the Science Museum”.

So I ask, even at this late hour, for the Minister to reflect again. The abolition of quangos is not necessarily a bad thing, but the old proverb about babies and bath water certainly applies in this particular case.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, as president of the All-Party Parliamentary Arts and Heritage Group I would like to add one brief comment. First, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for what he has done. Secondly, it is self-evident that the work of this committee must carry on. It is often better to allow a group of enthusiasts, who are totally dedicated to a specific thing, to carry on rather than have it subsumed within a larger organisation. I have seen this happen with the subsuming of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, on which I sat for almost 25 years, into National Archives. Although I pay tribute to what National Archives seeks to do, the specialist knowledge and specific determination that were embodied in the commission have largely gone.

When there are relatively small and perhaps even obscure groups doing a very good job, it is a pity to sweep them away in the name of quango-clearing. This was not a costly quango: it was a body of dedicated enthusiasts doing a good job.

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Railways clearly engage the interest of the public. There is one major railway TV programme on at the present time, which consists of three episodes about the historic nature of our railways on a major channel. Even Michael Portillo has moved on from politics to show his enthusiasm for bringing Bradshaw’s up-to-date with his “Great British Railway Journeys”. In doing so, he identifies changes over the historical period that have occurred as far as those railway journeys are concerned.

[Lord Snape]

Would my noble friend accept that Michael Portillo, who became Minister of State in the Department of Transport with very much a right-wing image, with a brief at the time to close the Settle and Carlisle line, spent a bit of time with railway men, went to see it for himself, became the more humane character that he is today and saved the Settle and Carlisle line as a result?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

My Lords, it has been a very interesting debate and I thank every noble Lord who has taken part in it. In all parts of the Chamber, there have been impressive demonstrations of support for the work of the Railway Heritage Committee, for the cause of railway heritage as a whole and, indeed, for the role of our railways in our society. I thank every noble Lord who has participated.

As I shall be playing a part in the work of the Science Museum advisory board, I hope very much that I will be able to satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and my noble friend Lord Snape that in future we will do as good a job as the Railway Heritage Committee has done. I am particularly pleased that there has been such praise for the work of the Railway Heritage Committee, which I have not been a part of for the past three years. I am sure that the members of that committee will be very gratified that there is such support for the work that they have done and that their efforts are being appreciated. I have to tell noble Lords that back in 2010 they did not feel that they were being appreciated and it appeared that the committee was being abolished almost by a stroke of the pen.

My noble friend Lord Snape referred to the sterling work by Mr Michael Portillo in saving the Settle to Carlisle line. If he is interested, and if I might be allowed a small commercial, your Lordships will find in the Library a book, of which I am the co-author, that was published last week called Holding the Line: How Britain’s Railways Were Saved, in which the saving of the Settle to Carlisle line is described in some detail.

[Lord Snape]

Can my noble friend assure me that I get a mention? Otherwise I will not read it.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

The noble Lord, Lord Snape, has a very good mention in it, which I hope that he will appreciate; not least because he was the source of information that has subsequently appeared in it.

The Minister has asked me not to press my amendment. I am getting pressure from behind me to do that but, in view of the fact that the Government have moved a very considerable distance, and I certainly do not want to fall out with the Minister, who has been extraordinarily helpful, as has his colleague the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, I do not intend to press it this afternoon. I will read very carefully what the Minister has said about the review to be conducted by the DCMS within three years; that is the first time that we have heard that. We will study those words very carefully, and if this can lead to a future new statutory instrument, then that will solve the problem. It is a missed opportunity but it is a great deal better than where we were in 2010. I beg leave to withdraw.