HC Deb 09 May 2000 vol 349 cc636-8
7. Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset)

What progress has been made towards completing the schemes in the targeted programme of road improvements. [120145]

The Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. John Prescott)

My noble Friend Lord Whitty confirmed on 3 February that we would let contracts for 13 of the 37 schemes this year. The Government have provided an additional £25 million in the Budget to enable contract awards for six schemes to be brought forward. We have announced the addition of four schemes to the programme. Government policy on roads is no longer based on the old system of predict and build; it is based on the new approach to appraisal, against the five criteria of environmental impact, safety, economy, accessibility and integration.

Mr. Bruce

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that answer. He will know that the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill), is coming to view the Dorchester relief road, which is in my constituency, on 13 July. He will also know that that scheme was ready to be built when the Government came to power and that they have become unpopular by cutting road schemes. May I urge him, in a spirit of cross-party support, to come to the aid of the Weymouth and Portland Labour party, which lost so heavily, and the Liberal Democrats, who control the county council and lost even more heavily in my constituency, and award them that scheme, which will be universally welcomed by all political parties?

Mr. Prescott

The hon. Gentleman was doing quite well in impressing me until the second part of his question. His criticisms about cutting road programmes should be directed to the previous Conservative Government. The 500 road schemes decided in 1990 represented a wish list, because 60 per cent. of them had not seen the light of day before the previous Government left office.

The great majority—236—had been cancelled, along with other programmes.

The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman) should be aware of the situation. As he has said a number of times in the House, he has waited 11 years for improvements to the A21. I am pleased to tell him that the Government have now agreed to the implementation of the Lamberhurst bypass scheme.

Mr. Ben Bradshaw (Exeter)

Devon county council, which is run by the Liberal Democrats, underspent by £1.4 million on its roads maintenance budget last year, despite the appalling condition of the roads in my constituency. I fell off my bike recently, having hit one of the many potholes that are the result of the council's incompetence. Is that not another argument for the Deputy Prime Minister to give Exeter city council—another beacon council, Labour run—control of its own affairs, and the unitary status that it so desperately needs?

Mr. Prescott

I agree with a great deal of what my hon. Friend has said. This is really about road programmes. I should apologise to the hon. Member for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce): the Weymouth relief road is a local road, the improvement is among those that we are considering, and we have talked to the local authority about it. We are not too happy about the scheme that they have presented, but we are discussing how they might present it in a way more acceptable to us.

Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex)

How can the Deputy Prime Minister say that he really cares about our crumbling road infrastructure and keep a straight face, given that he is spending less than the Conservative Government on road maintenance? Will he confirm figures that I have obtained from the House of Commons Library, which reveal that he is not only spending less than the average spent by the previous Government on road maintenance, but spending less on transport in total—less on local transport grants and credit approvals, less on infrastructure improvements and trunk roads on motorways, less on London Transport and less on support for the railways? When will he admit that the only programme on which he is spending more—an extra £100 million—is that represented by the running costs of his own Department? How is he to improve the transport infrastructure if he continues to lose all his battles with the Treasury?

Is it not the case that, as the Government tax motorists £36 billion a year—£1 in every £7 that they spend comes from the motorist—the Deputy Prime Minister is delivering less and less? Is that not why we say that his Government tax more and deliver less?

Mr. Prescott

The hon. Gentleman's rant is just not true. The resources that we have provided for maintenance are a considerable increase on what was provided by the previous Administration. We have spent £2.8 billion on trunk road maintenance; the previous Administration cut road maintenance spending considerably.

As for the overall figures, because in our first two years of government we decided to accept the expenditures laid down by the previous Government in their Red Book, they may seem lower. Our priority is finding a way in which to begin to improve public transport, while also giving greater priority to road maintenance. We are doing that, and it is beginning to have an effect.

I will take no criticism of the state of our roads from those who supported the previous Administration, who spent 18 years in government. The roads are in the worst possible state because of a lack of investment over the past 10 or 15 years.

Mr. Michael Jabez Foster (Hastings and Rye)

Given the encouraging progress on the roads programme to which my right hon. Friend referred, and the fact that the A21 is at the forefront of his mind, may I ask him whether, if—as is assumed—the access to Hastings study will result in a yes later this summer, the scheme will get somewhere in the next few years?

Mr. Prescott

As we said in our paper on the roads programme, the 37 schemes that we identified are to go ahead; the others were passed to local authorities to consider in their transport plans. As I said to the hon. Member for South Dorset, some are to be dealt with in that way. We will give them the order of priority, and exercise the criteria, laid down in our paper.