HC Deb 20 January 1965 vol 705 cc184-5
18. Mr. Dance

asked the Minister of Transport what estimate he has made of the cost of raising street lighting on main traffic routes to a uniformly high standard.

Mr. Tom Fraser

Good lighting will be of some benefit on any main road. Whether a particular road should be lighted must depend on the funds available and on an assessment of the resulting benefit, especially the saving in accidents, and the comparable benefits which might be obtained from other forms of improvement. It is, therefore, impossible to say in absolute terms how many miles of road should be lighted or what the cost would be.

Mr. Dance

Does the Minister agree that immediate expenditure on better road lighting would be more beneficial to road safety than the hundreds of thousands of pounds now being spent purely on propaganda?

Mr. Fraser

No; I do not accept that for a single moment.

Dame Irene Ward

You are wrong.