HC Deb 21 April 1969 vol 782 cc6-7
18. Mr. Edward M. Taylor

asked the Minister of Transport by what percentage work on motorway and major roads projects in 1968 fell short of the planned programme; and what were the comparable percentages in each of the previous four years.

Mr. Marsh

I would refer to the Answer given to the hon. Member on 14th April.—[Vol. 781, c. 207–8.]

Mr. Taylor

Is it not deplorable that, over the last five years, about £60 million of the planned road programme has disappeared in cuts or administrative slippage? Why did we have an 8.7 per cent. or £21 million reduction in 1968–69? What steps is the right hon. Gentleman taking, as a matter of urgency, to ensure that some of our road programme this year does not disappear in the same way.

Mr. Marsh

There has been faulty forecasting about the programme, largely because of the availability of new techniques now, and steps are being taken to rectify that. The underlying reason is that the Government have decided to build roads on a scale so much bigger than was ever envisaged by the hon. Gentleman's party that obviously we are coping with a great deal more. The hon. Gentleman mentioned 1968–69, when road building was 9 per cent. up on the year before, and was just over double what his party spent in its last year in office.

Mr. Raphael Tuck

Can my right hon. Friend explain why, although the Conservative Party continually says that if it comes to power it will cut the social services, every time we have one small cut in the social services right hon. and hon. Members opposite make a large outcry?

Mr. Marsh

It is the nature of the beast. But the roads are not social services—[Interruption.]—they certainly are not—and it is important that we should have a much higher level of expenditure on them in the future than we have had in the past. That is why I am pleased that the House, through the present Government, is spending six times as much on road building as it did 10 years ago.

Sir Knox Cunningham

Is it also in the nature of the Socialist beast to increase taxation and enlarge expenditure?

Mr. Marsh

One of the things the hon. and learned Gentleman will realise eventually is that if one wants to spend more money it has to come from somewhere.