Title (Hansard, 10 March 1971)

§ Mr. Michael Heseltine
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Every hon. Member will agree that our discussion of the Amendments was largely non-controversial and covered much of the ground covered on Second Reading and in Committee. The Government have been able to take advice from a number of people, and I pay tribute to those who have sent in their views to us. We have made a large number of Amendments which I hope hon. Members will feel have helped to improve a Bill that will make a contribution to our Statutes.
507 If I had to pick out two broad commendations of the Bill they are that it makes contributions, first, to safety, and, second, to the administration of the vital highways programme. We have, for example, taken powers to deal with dangerous walls and with the difficulties that arise from time to time in the building industry when construction is taking place in our streets. The introduction of builders' skips has been valuable, but they have their own special problems. There is no doubt that the totality of the contribution of the Bill is towards making it safer for people to go about their daily lives.
On the administration of the highways programme, there have been considerable steps in the Bill to help people in their relationships with those who have to carry out the building of the roads. Perhaps one of the most significant contributions was my right hon. Friend's statement about the increased publicity to be made about the road programme where it affects people.
Without doubt, flexibility will come from the optional, and probably rarely used, shorter proceedings, coupled with such things as being able to move the line of the road by an announced, very small deviation to help people with particular problems that come to our attention, without the necessity of abandoning the whole road scheme or deciding to go on and ignoring individual rights.
Those are examples of the way in which the Bill is designed to help people in their relationship with the road programme. I have great pleasure in commending it to the House.

§ Mr. Mulley
I think that it is unanimously agreed that this is a useful and valuable Bill. It has been carefully considered during all its stages. It has not led to any great controversy, certainly no great political controversy.
It is important that we should approach the important job of road building with modern legislation. For so long we have been labouring under legislation of virtually 1930 vintage, because, although there was a Highways Act in 1959, it was largely a consolidation Measure, and we have not for 40 years considered the legal requirements from the point of view of 508 the rights of the citizen and those of the Executive and the need for flexibility. It is right that we should consider them now. While we may have differences of emphasis on some of the points of the Bill, I am sure that we all agree that it furnishes the Government with a much better instrument for carrying out the road building programme.
This is not the occasion on which to debate how many and how fast we should build roads. While the Bill provides better administrative procedures and a better legal framework, assuming that it has a safe passage in another place, we also need money. I was disturbed to notice from the White Paper on Public Expenditure that provision for road building is not sufficient even to maintain the programme over the 20 years covered by my White Paper of last May. The Minister has been successful in getting the Bill through its legislative and administrative forms in this House. I hope that he will be equally vigorous and successful in obtaining the money to build the roads.
I thank the Minister and the Under-Secretary of State for the careful and considerate way in which they dealt with the many points raised today and in Committee. The Committee stage was not unduly long. The Chairman said that he thought it unique because no words had been wasted. Most of the Government Amendments tabled today were in response to points made in Committee. I did not rise on every occasion to say "Thank you" because it was agreed in Committee that a clear explanation from the Government was sufficient for the record. It is easy for someone to table a home-made Amendment, but to give the validity to the point involves the Minister and his advisers in a great deal of work. We are therefore extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and those who have advised him. The parliamentary procedure on a Bill of this kind is only the tip of the iceberg.
I hope that the Bill will become law at a very early date.

§ Mr. John Farr (Harborough)
I join in welcoming the Bill and congratulate the Ministers on the work which they have done on it.
509 I welcome in particular Clause 19 which empowers the provision of footbridges over highways and trunk roads. The Clause is essential because, with the increase in the number of motor vehicles which move at such high speed on our new main roads and motorways, traffic has tended to cut off communities. In my constituency, on the A46, there is a dual carriageway which has cut the village of Narborough in two. Pedestrians have no safe means of crossing it. A bridge or tunnel is the only answer. This is a completely unrestricted stretch of road, with no sped limit. Traffic travels at anything up to 70 miles per hour. The only way by which a pedestrian can cross in these hazardous circumstances is by operating a traffic light—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I am not sure whether what he is saying is related to the Bill. Can he assure me that it is?

§ Mr. Farr
I can assure you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that it relates exactly to the Bill. I was saying how glad I was to see Clause 19 in the Bill because it empowers the provision of pedestrian footbridges over motorways and trunk roads which tend to cut in half many communities living on the outskirts of town.
Pedestrians who wish to cross this busy main road between communities have to do so either by operating a traffic light and taking their chance or by slipping across between the traffic, which becomes more frequent and travels at ever greater speed. As large cities expand and suburbs are built up around them, it is not good enough to leave it to chance for pedestrians, old people and school children to cross the road.
I hope that Clause 19 will be energetically acted upon by the Ministry and that we shall see at certain busy places and on important trunk routes, like the A46 at Narborough, the construction at an early date of a footbridge so that there is no longer the risk of vehicles killing and injuring school children and old people as they endeavour to cross.