Parliamentary Questions - Community Railways

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons why none of us trust the proposals is that they represent a classic smoke-and-mirrors effort by the Government to shift the subsidy that they have been giving to community rail lines on to local authorities, without giving those authorities any extra money? The case is made—no one can trust the Government on this issue because they are seeking simply to shift the responsibility and any blame for problems on such lines to other agencies that do not have the necessary funds.

Mrs. May : My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is yet another example of how this Government all too frequently shift the burden of responsibility on to local authorities but do not follow that up with the necessary funding. The idea that a community rail partnership would take over the running of the Maidenhead-Marlow or Twyford-Henley lines, with all the funding responsibilities that that would bring, causes significant concern among my constituents. They feel that the only outcome will be reduced services—particularly peak-hour services—and that this is about nothing less than future closure by the back door.

The Strategic Rail Authority's consultation paper on the proposals suggested that a community rail partnership would not be suitable for high-frequency railways; in fact, it designated as suitable low-frequency railways with hourly or less frequent services. In peak hours, the Maidenhead-Marlow and Twyford-Henley lines have half-hourly services, and that fact on its own shows that they do not fit the criteria set by the Strategic Rail Authority for community railways.

As I have said, there may well be railways that the designation fits, but I do not believe that the two lines affecting my constituency are such railways. They are used heavily by commuters in peak hours and by schoolchildren travelling to local schools. We want people to use those railways because doing so has many environmental and social advantages. They are heavily used at the moment, and it would not be appropriate to hand them over to the local authority. In the case of the Maidenhead-Marlow line, the local authority—the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead—could not even respond to the consultation document on community railways; local authorities are not the best bodies to run community railways.

I can only think that the Government have a long-term plan to cut back on the branch lines and to reduce the subsidy. That will lead to reduced services and, in the end, to cuts by the back door. As one of my constituents said in the local paper, at least Beeching was honest about what was being done. I fear for the future of those two lines as a result of the designation, and I urge the Government to remove the Maidenhead-Marlow and Twyford-Henley lines from the proposal to designate them as community railways. My constituents need those lines, and the Government need to respond to their concerns.