Clause 1 (Hansard, 22 February 1988)

§ Dr. Reid
Of Private Eye.

Mr. Bottomley
It is not too clear who the private eye was on that occasion.
Spokesmen on the Opposition Front Bench raised several issues. I do not accept all their strictures, and I suggest that they, the members of the Select Committee and other hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) have confidence in the way in which I normally approach issues. I am not regarded in 118 the Department or in Parliament as the sort of person who accepts a brief and reads it out. That is not my way of approaching things, and I should be sorry if people thought it was. The hon. Member for Bradford, South—

§ Mr. Tony Lloyd
The Minister has raised an important point. This is not a matter of personalities. There is no question of the Minister's competence or character here. As the Minister has said, he did not have the opportunity to go through the same long process as the members of the Select Committee. That makes an important difference.

Mr. Bottomley
I honestly wish that I had appeared before the Select Committee, because if I had it might have been possible to move slightly away from the manner in which the Select Committee procedure has to work under present rules. Under those rules, the petitioners put their case, and the promoters' case is not described in the way that it is described in annex A, which describes the straight factual side of the relationship between wind exceeds and restrictions on the flow of traffic.
Three major issues were put to the Select Committee. The first was what sort of wind there would be. The second question was what effect it would have on restrictions on traffic. The third question—in effect the trial within the trial, which is where commercial confidentiality comes in —was whether it was possible to add 3 m high wind-shielding to the existing design. Commercial confidentiality was not the issue at the base of the hours of wind. That was a separate issue.
It is worth saying that Dr. Cook is a recognised expert, and nothing that I have said was designed to undermine that in any way. It was his work that described the hours of exceedence as being plus or minus 40 per cent. Obviously, there is no doubt about the integrity of the proposed bridge, where Dr. Cook's work leads to a confidence factor of plus or minus 5 per cent. That is far more useful than plus or minus 40 per cent., which gives a wide range.
The issue of commercial confidentiality exercised the Committee to some extent and in some strength, but dealt with the subsidiary issue whether it was possible to adapt the existing bridge design and put 3 m high wind-shielding on it. It is quite clear from my experience around the world, and from research that has been carried out, that there is no bridge with a 3 m high wind shield across an estuary. The closest was the Europa bridge in Austria which had to contend with the fhön wind, which could sweep up suddenly at 80 miles an hour.
I spent a fair amount of time looking at Japanese road reports. Japan has a 21-mile stretch of road that goes over bridges that do not have wind-shielding. I have here the annual report on roads from the Japan Roads Association. In it there is a picture of the Seiun bridge on the metropolitan expressway. There is one cable-stayed expressway. The Seiun bridge is a different type of bridge, with no wind shields. If wind shields were in any sense common and appeared on, for example, 10 per cent. of the bridges currently under construction, there would be more of a basis for saying that the Department is wrong.

§ Mr. Morgan
Does the Minister accept that the same principle would have applied to the Severn bridge in 1966? That was the world's first box girder bridge. The Minister is saying that nothing must ever be done for the first time.

Mr. Bottomley
No, I spend most of my time arguing the opposite; arguing against the historic negative that one cannot do something in a new way because it has never been done that way before. I am not arguing in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests. The addition of limited wind-shielding is acceptable.
In that context, I should like to pick up some of the points made in the debate. Without the persistent concern of Essex and Kent county councils, I do not think that the partial wind-shielding would have been brought forward in the first place. It was not suddenly produced as a pre-emptive measure three days before the Select Committee started its proceedings. Obviously, work needs to be done to test whether partial wind-shielding would have a good effect and whether the bridge could stand it. One needs to take those issues in the round rather than try to divide people into camps or try to mislead the Select Committee or decide to what extent one side of the argument may have exaggerated or gone up to a 40 per cent. tolerance one way or the other.
The speech of the hon. Member for Bradford, South showed that interest in this subject is not confined to those who served on the Select Committee. I sometimes wonder, when the hon. Gentleman starts shouting and accusing people of being childish, whether he is moving away from the substance of the debate and on to other approaches to politics.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) spoke about the hybrid Bill procedures. The House is considering opposed private Bills. Hybrid Bills are slightly separate. Perhaps the usual channels will consider what has been said tonight and whether an improvement can be made to the hybrid Bill procedure.

Mr. Robert Hughes
I am grateful to the Minister for those remarks. It has been argued that, because the hybrid Bill procedure produces quicker results in planning terms than the formal planning procedures, of necessity it can never be challenged because it might cause delay in the initial programme.
The other difficulty is that, when we debate such matters, inevitably partisan terms are used. When we are putting a non-party point, I object to hon. Members saying across the Floor of the House that while in previous years I have argued for more jobs, because I wish these issues to be properly and thoroughly discussed I am in favour of losing jobs. That partisan element makes it difficult, under the present procedure, to speak objectively.