11.
asked the Secretary of State for Transport if he has any plans to change the present law relating to the closure of rail passenger services.
No, Sir.
Is the Minister aware of the speech made last week by Mr. Cobbett, the director of strategic studies at the British Railways Board, in favour of the wish of the BRB to abandon certain rural branch lines, but, worse, referring to what he called the cumbersome procedures adopted or put over by various Governments for the closing of passenger services? Can the Government give an undertaking that the so-called cumbersome procedures, which give opportunities to cranks, as Mr. Cobbett says, will remain as safeguards to the public?
I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is entirely fair when he describes the procedures as cumbersome.
He did not say that.
I do not altogether agree with the view expressed by the gentleman to whom the hon. Gentleman refers. I shall certainly look at the procedures, but I know that the hon. Gentleman will understand that they are intended to give protection to passengers on the railways. If a closure is proposed because of the decline in demand, which means that the service cannot be continued without undue cost to the railways board, and if the closure is opposed, it can go forward only with the consent of the Secretary of State.
Order. Answers are getting impossibly long. They are now almost as long as the questions.