Transport, South-East Essex (Hansard, 12 March 1990)

§ 7. Mrs. Gorman
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will review the current transport facilities in south-east Essex.

§ The Minister for Public Transport (Mr. Michael Portillo)
A total of 13 schemes are planned for the upgrading of the A13 at an estimated cost of well over £200 million. I am expecting proposals from British Rail for a £300 million package of improvements on the Fenchurch Street line, including new rolling stock.

§ Mrs. Gorman
I thank my hon. Friend for his reply. Is he aware—I am sure that he is—that south-east Essex has the largest influx of population in the country and that the railway lines and the A13, which he mentioned, are some of the worst in the country? At present, commuters on the Fenchurch Street line—my secretary among them—take three hours to do the journey from Southend to London. Also, the A13 services Tilbury dock, Shell Haven, the Mobil depot, Dagenham Ford, some of the biggest gravel workings in the country, and all the rubbish that is dumped from London. It is a dual carriageway for much its length. Congestion is simply terrible. It is not good enough to wait until the late 1990s.

§ Mr. Portillo
I know something about the frustration that is suffered by my hon. Friend's constituents, not least because she has written to me about it previously. She has been a great champion of her constituents' transport needs and anxieties. She will have heard me say that there is a package of £500 million investment for the road and the railway. That is a substantial figure. I hope that it will bring great relief. Taking the eastern region as a whole, we have added £1.9 billion in the recent White Paper on road spending. I am sure that that will go a long way towards helping her.

§ Mr. Tony Banks
Does the Minister recall that the Secretary of State for Transport denied that he was the strategic transport authority for the south-east? British Rail has also denied that that is its function. Who is looking after the strategic transport planning of the south-east? As the Government have walked away from the problem, is it any wonder that there is so much transport chaos, which the Minister, his colleagues and everybody in the south-east must know about? When will the Government take responsibility for looking after transport as a whole in the south-east?

§ Mr. Portillo
We took over responsibility for part of the transport network from the Greater London council, of which the hon. Gentleman used to be chairman. Since then we have doubled the investment on London Underground, and over the next three years we shall double the investment again. That investment will then be four times higher than it was under the hon. Gentleman's chairmanship. We take responsibility for that part of the network. The hon. Gentleman will have heard me say that there is an increase of £1.9 billion in spending on the 8 programme for building trunk roads, for which we are also responsible. He will have also have heard me say that there is major investment in Network SouthEast. That is being made possible by the greater efficiency of the railways, which again has come about under the Government.

§ Mr. Squire
Will my hon. Friend accept my full endorsement of the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman), not merely on the Fenchurch Street line, which is still the Cinderella of much of British Rail in London, but on the A13? It is now almost 15 years since the proposal was first made to take it over the marshes. We have not yet seen the first sign of work commencing. The A13 is a major trunk road from the ports to central London and round the M25. It is critically important that we give it higher proprity.

§ Mr. Portillo
I agree with my hon. Friend that the A13 is of critical and strategic importance. He will know that the development of docklands has given an extra impetus to the need to get on with developing the A13. He will also know that I have a personal responsibility as chairman of the docklands transport steering group to make sure that the works are carried forward in a timely fashion. They are complex schemes, many of which have important implications, both for the environment and for residents. The necessary processes must be gone through.