THE MINISTER'S TRUNK ROAD LOCAL PLANS (Hansard, 26 February 1991)

§ Mr. Corbyn
I beg to move amendment No. 14, in page 45, line 1, leave out from 'any' to 'debt' in line 38 and insert 'The Secretary of State may, by order subject to negative resolution of either House of Parliament, require any reasonable expenses incurred by him in the exercise of his powers under subsection (7) above to be paid to him by the London authority.'. The amendment is important. One of the more disquieting features of the Bill is that it gives the traffic commissioner powers over local authorities. In addition, it gives him powers to override the wishes of the local 921 authorities to do works in their districts and then charges them for it. The amendment seeks to allow some parliamentary scrutiny of what is taking place.
As I said earlier, the Bill provides for significant centralisation of power away from local authorities towards central Government. We seek to provide that the Secretary of State may, by order subject to negative resolution of either House of Parliament, require any reasonable expenses incurred by him in the exercise of his powers under subsection (7) above to be paid to him by the London authority. That would allow parliamentary consent for what is an invasion of the prerogative of local authorities in local traffic management schemes. We tabled the amendment for that purpose.
The Minister did not make it clear in Committee why such centralisation was necessary. He is unable to point to an example of any London local authority which is unwilling to discuss the problems of traffic passing through its district. Local authorities have a different philosophy from the Secretary of State, in that the majority of Labour-controlled authorities believe that London would be better off if there were less traffic rather than more. We believe that there should be a traffic authority—subject to democratic election—for London as a whole. The Bill does not propose that, and we are not likely to get it from any legislation stemming from the Bill.
We can expect the Secretary of State to be answerable to Parliament for what charges he places on local authorities; otherwise, an unelected official might disagree with a local authority. The Secretary of State would hear the dispute between the local authority and that official and might decide in favour of the traffic director for London. A substantial bill would come to the local authority, which might be charge-capped and not able to divert resources to traffic works. It might have decided that its priorities lay elsewhere. There should at least be parliamentary scrutiny of such action.

§ Mr. Chope
I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's argument. The intervention by the Secretary of State, under the provisions of the clause, would be part of a last resort, when all attempts at persuasion had failed The hon. Gentleman said that it was impossible to quote a precedent for that—obviously it is at present, because we have not started to implement the scheme. But if what is happening in Islington is indicative of what might happen in future, who can say whether such powers will be necessary? I hope that they will not be, but if they are needed, it is reasonable that the Secretary of State should be able to recover his administrative expenses from local authorities. It is not appropriate for him to have to present an account in the form of a statutory instrument to be laid before Parliament.

§ Mr. Corbyn
It is all very well for the Minister to say that, but we live in a country where the expenditure of local authorities, particularly in London, is under the tight control of central Government policies and directives. In reality, we have a process of fining local authorities for alleged non-co-operation in the implementation of the priority route schemes by the Secretary of State, who cannot be brought to Parliament to account for his actions. That is totally unsatisfactory.
I should have thought that the Minister would recognise that local authorities have a legitimate role in traffic planning and management in London. If they do 922 not, perhaps he should be honest and say that he wishes to take over all traffic management and planning in London, rather than using the stealthy approach and taking over only priority route schemes. That appears to be the logic of his answer.