HL Deb 05 February 1946 vol 139 cc167-97

3.47 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

LORD WALKDEN

My Lords, amongst the many tasks we have to deal with today we are called upon to assist in adding another chapter to the long and fascinating story of our public roads. It was a rough story during the Middle Ages, but it became smoother with the advent of the Turnpike Trust Companies, about 500 of them, and the development of horse-drawn traffic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Roads went rough again in the nineteenth century, after the advent of the railways, but during the present century they became quite smooth again. Rough macadam has been replaced by fine tarmac, thanks to the splendid work of our county councils and other authorities. I think their work has been really wonderful. I remember how throughout this country at one time in the winter the roads were muddied up very badly, especially in the rural areas, and in summer-time one got smothered with dust if one travelled on them. The county councils have changed all that and everything is less uncomfortable than it was.

The internal combustion engine has brought us many new problems, some of them extremely urgent, and the Bill I am introducing is intended to help in their solution. We must remember that there will be streams, if not floods, of new traffic appearing directly our country has recovered from its war-time troubles and people have been able to obtain cars, and business people have been able to obtain lorries, for the movement of personnel and goods on our roads. Some of your Lordships may remember that you gave approval to the Trunk Roads Bill in 1936, ten years ago. That Bill sought to separate trunk roads, for through traffic, from local roads, chiefly for local traffic—a very clear distinction. It made the Minister of Transport responsible for the trunk roads and left the local councils to continue their care of local roads within their respective areas. Experience has since shown the desirability of endowing the Minister with further powers for taking over another 3,685 miles of trunk road, making 8,144 in all, and of enabling him to acquire further mileage in the future, to construct new roads himself and to act more expeditiously than he can at present in regard to road improvements and safety precautions. That is the purpose of the present Bill. The Act of 1936, as I have said, transferred to the Minister 4,459 miles of roads, previously vested in a large number of local highway authorities, which constituted, in the words of the Act, "the national system of routes for through traffic."

That was the new creation of 1936. The Minister was given powers to maintain and improve those trunk roads, and to employ local highway authorities as his agents for the day-to-day management of the trunk roads in their respective areas. In carrying out improvements to the trunk roads, the Minister was empowered to deviate from the existing line by building by-passes or diversions, but whenever he did so the length of the trunk road which was superseded by new construction ceased to be a trunk road and reverted to the status of county road. It was a case of "new roads for old" on every such occasion. The Minister had no power to increase the number of trunk roads—he could not take any more over—and the improvements he could carry out were, in effect, limited to improving the engineering features and the general alignment of a fixed number of roads. Moreover, no roads in county boroughs or large burghs in Scotland or in the County of London became or could become trunk roads under the Act.

This last provision attracted some criticism in both Houses of Parliament during the passage of the Act of 1936. There were two reasons for it: first, the fact that trunk road routes, where they pass right through large towns, usually form one of the main streets, and a high proportion of the traffic using them is, therefore, local and not through traffic; second, the view that through traffic routes should by-pass and not traverse large centres of the population. These points, I think, are very good reasons for the restrictions.

This Bill transfers, as from April 1 next, a further 3,685 miles, as I have just said, from local highway authorities to the Minister. These roads are listed in the First Schedule which your Lordships will probably have perused. They form an interconnecting system of through routes between various parts of the country, they link the chief centres of industry and population with each other and with the most important ports, they connect the more important food-producing areas with their markets. That is a most important matter from the agricultural point of view. Further, they include certain routes which are of importance to the tourist traffic. I think that covers all the principal considerations that we have to bear in mind.

Unlike the Act of 1936, the Bill does not treat the trunk road system as something fixed and final. The system is regarded as an organic entity which must be capable of growth and modification to meet the changing needs of the community. Accordingly Clause I em- powers the Minister by Order to take over additional existing roads as trunk roads, to build new routes as trunk roads (without necessarily superseding any part of any existing trunk road) and to direct that a road shall cease to be a trunk road when he deems that that is desirable. The clause requires him to keep the national system of routes for through traffic continually under review, and, in exercising this power, to have regard to the requirements of national and local planning, including the requirements of agriculture. These powers will introduce into the administration of the trunk road system a measure of flexibility which will make possible its adaptation to changes in the main flow of through traffic which may result from future developments in town and country planning, in the location of industry and in the geographical distribution of the population. The exclusion from the trunk road system of all roads in county boroughs, large burghs in Scotland and in the County of London is to be abolished.

The second part of the First Schedule of the Bill lists certain lengths of road in county boroughs and large burghs (though none in the County of London at present) which will become trunk roads on April 1 next. In addition, the new powers to take over further existing roads, of building new trunk roads or of discarding certain lengths of road from the trunk road system, are to be exercisable in county boroughs, large burghs and the County of London. This does not mean that the reasons on which the decision to exclude such areas from the trunk road system of 1936 was based are now regarded as no longer valid. It is as true now as in 1936 that the principal traffic routes through the centres of large towns serve the needs of local traffic at least as much as that of through traffic; and the Government are as strongly convinced as ever that through traffic should be diverted from highly developed areas in the interest alike of safety, of good planning and of speedy communications. But local government boundaries of to-day were not in the main determined by consideration of the most suitable allocation of responsibility for through traffic routes. Borough boundaries often zigzag across trunk road routes in such a way that a continuous length of road is divided into a succession of short stretches, the responsibility for which alternates between the Minister and the county borough council, according as the section of road lies in the borough or in the adjoining county respectively. Such conditions may present an unnecessary obstacle to uniform standard of maintenance and of improvement. As your Lordships will gather, in such a case as I have cited one part of the road would be under the Minister and therefore kept under modern standards while the other section would be maintained according to local standards. You would not have an even run of through traffic.

The removal of that obstacle is one reason for the proposed change. In addition, some county boroughs and large burghs in Scotland have built outer ring roads diverting through traffic from the centre of the town, and they have been linked with radial routes to connect them to through traffic arteries leading to and from the centre. Where such orbital and radial routes connect existing trunk roads, or roads which it is proposed to take over as trunk roads under the Bill, they form integral parts of the trunk road system, and to transfer responsibility for them to the Minister is a logical step which in no way derogates from the principles of leaving with local authorities the responsibility for routes serving mainly local needs and diverting through traffic from centres of development. I hope that I have made that point clear.

The powers included in Clause 1 of the Bill are an appreciable extension of those conferred by Section 1 (3) of the Act of 1936, and in their application they are likely to bring about considerable changes from time to time in the responsibilities of individual highway authorities. It is proper, therefore, in such circumstances that Parliament should have a greater measure of supervision of the Minister's activities and that local authorities should have the right to be fully consulted, to make objections to the Minister's proposals and, in contentious cases, to submit their objections to Parliament for decision. These objects are achieved by means of the procedure provided in the Second Schedule which requires the Minister to publish his proposals, to serve notices of them upon specified authorities and to hold local inquiries if demanded. By the provisions of Clause 2 (I), if objections to the Minister's proposals made by the highway authority whose responsibilities will be affected are not withdrawn, the Order is to be subject to the special Parliamentary procedure of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act, 1945, which your Lordships approved a few weeks ago. I might add that that procedure seems to be giving general satisfaction. When this Bill was in Committee in another place, great pressure was put on the Minister and strong arguments were put up to add many more roads, aggregating to over 1,000 miles, but the Minister objected to including them on the ground that every case should be thoroughly considered locally, and not brought into the Act of Parliament if the local people had not had much to say about it and that under this lay-out of notices and appeals and the right of coming to Parliament, they would have perfectly fair play. He, for his part, would have a fair chance to consider them, and would in every case where the plea was proven, adopt the further roads one by one as they proved to be desirable. That seemed to satisfy all those who pressed for inclusion and that gave satisfaction to a large number of Members in another place who had been approached to get other roads included. It was rather a contentious point, in fact the most contentious point in this Bill, in the Commons, and it was met in the way I have described.

Those are the most important changes which the Bill will bring about. Other provisions are mainly extensions of the Minister's powers, designed to enable him, in planning and carrying out schemes of new construction or improvement, to adopt modern conceptions of lay-out, in the interests both of the safety and convenience of traffic and of the preservation of amenities. Clause 3 of this Bill will enable the Minister to build cycle tracks or footpaths with greater freedom than before. They can be associated with the trunk road at some distance from it and separated by intervening land which does not form part of the road. At present the Minister may build cycle tracks and footpaths but they and the carriageway must run side by side and between the same highway boundaries. Under this Bill there will be a change which will be advantageous in several ways. The segregation of mechanically propelled traffic, pedal cycles and pedestrians is new generally accepted as an important principle in the promotion of greater safety. It is one on which the Road Safety Committee have laid considerable emphasis. I should like to pay a tribute to the work of that Committee which is a regular, continuous Committee, and which issues reports of great interest from time to time to all concerned. I regard that Committee as the apostolic successor to the Alness Committee which was set up in this House some years ago. Properly applied, this principle can increase not only safety but amenity, that is, the principle of separating the tracks. The separate footpath or cycle track can follow a course which will enable its users to enjoy natural beauties of which they would be largely deprived if they were compelled to adhere to the line followed by the carriageway. Furthermore, in many places where cycle tracks are needed the widening of the road on the existing alignment would be very costly by reason of the engineering works required and of the adjoining property which would have to be demolished, whereas by building a track or path a little distance away the carriageway would be left undisturbed.

Similar benefits should follow upon the proposed power in the same clause to confine the existing carriageway to one-way traffic and to accommodate traffic coming in the opposite direction on an-other carriageway. If a considerable stretch of road was available the two carriageways would be separated by intervening land, an expedient which is not available to the Minister under his present powers. The new powers in Clause 4 are also in the interests of safety. One of the commonest features of through traffic routes, resulting in dangerous conditions, is the concentration of too many junctions and side turnings in a relatively short length of the through traffic route. The clause proposes that the Minister should have power in such circumstances to remodel junctions and to stop up existing junctions, building an alternative connexion between the severed junction and the trunk road at a safer point. As a safeguard for the rights of users of a junction which may be thus stopped up, the Minister's power is limited so that he may not stop up an existing connexion unless there is an alternative connexion within 440 yards of the junction to be stopped up, or the Minister provides such a connexion. At present the side roads are outside the Minister's jurisdiction, although it is clear that a dangerous layout or a bad alignment on the side road can have a very material bearing upon the safety of traffic on the trunk road. Under Clause 4, the Minister would be able to take effective action and to bear the cost as a trunk road improvement and there would be no expense to the local authority. In order to safeguard the rights of interested parties, the orders made under this clause are subject to the procedure laid down in the Second Schedule.

Under Clause 6 of the Bill there is an important new power whereby the Minister may authorize by order the construction of bridges or tunnels carrying trunk roads over or under navigable waters. That is a power he has never had before. It is under this clause that a project such as the proposed Severn crossing would be dealt with. The trunk road can either go over or under. Hitherto such projects required the promotion of a special Bill in each case, involving substantial expense and occupying much Parliamentary time. The interests of bodies primarily affected—navigation authorities and catchment boards as well as local authorities—are carefully safeguarded by making orders under Clause 6 subject to the same procedure as orders under Clause 1 (2). There will be the same provisions for publication of proposals, service of notices, consideration of objections and the holding of public inquiries; and if and when a navigation authority or catchment board, having lodged an objection to the Minister's, proposals, does not withdraw the objection, it will have the right to bring the matter before Parliament, for decision by the machinery of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act, 1945.

Another obstacle to the efficient maintenance and improvement of the trunk road system is to be removed by the provisions of Clause 7. The clause will transfer to the Minister privately-owned bridges on trunk road routes, and the lengths of road carried by those bridges. Hitherto they have been excluded from his jurisdiction. The position in respect of these bridges, the majority of which belong to railway companies, is, generally speaking, that they were built in the exercise of statutory powers conferred by private Acts.

Where the construct ion of a railway, canal or other undertaking involved interference with a public road, the statutory undertakers were generally required to carry the road over their works by means of an adequate bridge and thereafter to maintain the bridge, its approaches and the road over them. It has been held that this obligation is limited to the maintenance of a bridge adequate in character and strength to serve the needs of the normal traffic using the road in question at the time the bridge was built. Those owning the bridges stand on that decision.

The divided responsibility for the bridge on the one hand, and the highway on either side of it on the other hand has proved a serious handicap to the execution of urgently needed improvements. When proposals for major alterations by widening, strengthening or reconstructing the bridges are put forward, the private owners may be able reasonably to contend that the bridge fulfils the statutory requirements imposed upon them and is entirely adequate for the purposes of their own undertaking. The fact that it may no longer be adequate for the needs of an increased volume of new road traffic is not their concern but that of the highway authority. The highway authority however face the prospect of heavy capital outlay on works which at the end of it all will not be theirs but will still belong to the railway company or other private owner. At whatever stage important works may be decided upon, difficult and protracted negotiations commonly ensure in order to reach agreement as to the allocation of the cost of the works between the private owner and the highway authority.

These disadvantages can best be illustrated by the fact that in 1935 the Ministry of Transport launched a programme of reconstruction of sub-standard bridges, and 1,289 bridges were selected as requiring urgent attention. Highway authorities were offered a specially high rate of grant, 75 per cent. of the cost, as an inducement to press on with the work. Four years later, in 1939, schemes had been prepared and approved in respect of only 211 bridges out of 1,289, of which 175 schemes had been put in hand and 103 of them actually completed. It was then estimated that at that rate of progress the completion of the programme, which was a very moderate programme, would take about fifty years.

Divided responsibility is the root of the trouble in connexion with these bridges, and it is unlikely that it will be overcome by anything short of the transfer of control and responsibility from the private owner to the highway authority. That is sheer common sense. There is nothing illogical about it. It has been forced upon us by the experience of the last ten years at least, and indeed longer. As far as trunk roads are concerned this solution is adopted in Clause 7 of the Bill; that is the particular clause dealing with bridges. The bridges will vest in the Minister, in relation to existing trunk roads, roads which become trunk roads under the Bill on 1st April, 1946, and in the case of any existing roads taken over by the Minister in the future under his powers under Clause 1 (2) on the date upon which the road becomes a trunk road.

The terms of transfer will be settled by agreement between the Minister and the private owners or will be determined by independent arbitration in cases of dispute. The clause follows the provisions of the Bridges Act, 1929, in several respects. In particular it preserves any statutory rights of statutory undertakers (other than the bridge-owners) in relation to the bridges, and requires the Minister to maintain the existing headway and clearances where the bridges are over railways, canals, or similar works. The former owners will be relieved of all future liability for the maintenance, repair or improvement of the bridges which, together with the road surfaces over them, will vest in the Minister as part of the trunk road. They will make payments to the Minister in respect of this relief or their liabilities, but where, as will happen in some cases, the transfer of the bridge unavoidably deprives the owners of property which has hitherto brought them in some revenue, the Minister will have to compensate them. Arbitration will have to take place in the case of dispute, and there will be no delay about it if we carry this Bill. These provisions have been subjected to close scrutiny and are considered to be fair and reasonable. The clause is expected to eliminate hitherto unavoidable delays in the execution of improvements long overdue.

As to the financial aspects of the Bill, I do not think they will unduly trouble your Lordships. The immediately ascertainable financial results of the transfer of the additional roads to the Minister will be that an annual maintenance charge of about £2,500,000 will be borne in full by the Road Fund, instead of in part by the local rates with the assistance of grants from the Road Fund. As most of the roads taken over are at present Class 1 roads, towards the maintenance of which grants of 60 per cent. are made, the net increase to be borne by the Exchequer will be about £1,000,000 a year. Of course; no estimate can be made of the cost of future improvements of these roads, a burden of which local highway authorities will be relieved.

These proposals constitute an appreciable relief financially for the local authorities as well as a great aid to them in having better roads through their areas. There is a great deal of work to be done on the existing trunk roads and on those which will be added to the trunk road system by this Bill. In the three years from the passing of the Act of 1936 to the outbreak of war, many plans were made. Some were carried out, and some were started but were interrupted by the war. There are now also considerable arrears of maintenance to be overtaken. New surveys will be required of the roads which will be added to the trunk road system. As men and materials become more freely available it will be possible with the new powers which the Bill will confer to make the trunk road system adequate in all respects for the traffic of the country.

I have given a concise statement of the intentions of the Bill. I have read most of what I have imparted to you because I am aware that the record will be read by many thousands of people who want to know what is being done with regard to this matter. I hope you will pardon me for having done so much reading. I do feel, and I hope you share my feelings, that this measure does carry us one stage further, that we are adding one more chapter to the story of our roads. The welfare of our country and the happiness of our people depend so much upon the provision of adequate roads that every effort should be made to render them as safe as possible. I feel sure your Lordships will give careful attention to this matter and give this Bill a Second Reading without a Division, as was done in another place.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Walkden.)

4.20 p.m.

LORD LLEWELLIN

My Lords, I do not intend to keep your Lordships long on this measure. I would like to thank the noble Lord who introduced it and to say that, as far as I am concerned, I am in support of it. The noble Lord referred to the fascinating history of our roads, and for some nine months I, in a way, took part in that history when, as Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of War Transport, under the direction of my noble friend Lord Leathers, I had the direct responsibility for matters concerning the roads, and, incidentally, was the first Chairman of the Road Accidents Committee to which the noble Lord referred.

It was a sad thing at that time that we could do so little to improve our roads. There were the plans about which the noble Lord spoke. A large number of them had to be abandoned because the man-power was needed for more urgent purposes, in going into the Services and making munitions, and things of that sort. Our main task during that period of the war had to be to try and see that the existing surfaces of the roads were maintained in a sufficiently good state of repair to take the very heavy loads and burdens which we knew were later destined to come upon them. I think that the Ministry can claim that it then succeeded in its task, because never before have such huge vehicles, and such a mass of huge vehicles, as our American allies brought to these shores, ever traversed our highways. Huge tanks and huge guns and tank transporters, colossal, cranes and parts of bridges, and indeed, of course, parts of artificial harbours, traversed our roads, a purpose for which, I suspect, those roads were never really intended. And a large part of this traffic was, of necessity, landed in the Clyde or the Mersey and had to be brought right down to the South Coast. The roads had to be kept up, and I am glad to think they let none of these vehicles down.

Nevertheless, the major improvements in our roads are now a further six years overdue, and it is time that something strenuous was done about it. This Bill is a follow-up measure of that passed in 1936, and my only complaint about it is that it does not go far enough. The noble Lord referred to what could be done under Clause 1 (2) in bringing further roads under this system, but of course the governing factor of that clause is the Minister himself and the Ministry itself, because nobody but they can exercise the initiative of bringing a new road in; and from the Schedule that we have got before us we pretty well can judge what their present intentions are.

I believe this to be one of the right jobs for a central Government Department, and I must say that I only wish that the Ministry of War Transport still had, as its main tasks, jobs such as these, and that officials of the Ministry did not have other preoccupations which I suspect the advent of the present Government has brought with it. If the Ministry had not to worry about problems of nationalization of this or that transport industry we might have a more comprehensive and better measure than this. However, I hope that this Bill, limited as it is, will do something largely to reduce the appalling number of accidents on our roads, which after all is one of the most important problems of our time and one towards whose solution no amount of nationalization, I am afraid, will contribute anything at all. If I may sum up this Bill, it seems to me it is rather like dried eggs. They are good so far as they go.

VISCOUNT MAUGHAM

If you can get them.

LORD LLEWELLIN

At the present time there is not enough of them, and I say there is not enough of this Bill. Secondly, with dried eggs, their success depends on how you use them. The success of this measure will depend on whether it is energetically put forward and used by the Government Department. I hope that this measure will be carried into law and that active steps will be taken under it when it is passed. In this kind of function, I think we can all join in wishing the Minister and his staff success.

4.28 p.m.

THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE

My Lords, like the noble Lord who has just sat down, I would state that I welcome this Bill which has been introduced to-day, and I welcome it with the same remark as that used by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin—namely, that it does not go far enough. It is right and proper that the national responsibility for the provision and maintenance of highways should be extended. It is wel- come and desirable because, as the noble Lord who introduced the Bill indicated, it spreads the burden of upkeep, of maintenance, and it relieves the local rates, It allows, secondly, a more liberal and uniform treatment of these roads, which is certainly required for dealing with the extended road traffic. Thirdly, I think it should be a contribution to the greater safety of the public.

But when we examine the Bill in more detail and look into the programme outlined by the Schedule of the addition of 3,685 miles, it is difficult to see that this is a really comprehensive programme or that it anywhere nearly approaches the ideal outlined in the paragraph of the introductory memorandum which was quoted by the noble Lord in introducing the Bill. May I take Scotland as an illustration? It gives the impression of the roads having been viewed from rather a regional or piecemeal aspect instead of as a national whole. With regard to the additions for Scotland, I can claim that they fall very far short of the words in the paragraph which was quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Walkden, to the effect that these roads were planned to connect the chief centres of industry and population with each other and with the most important ports, and to connect the more important food-producing districts with their markets.

A bird's-eye view of Scotland will divide it mainly into three bands or areas. The middle district may be classified as the industrial belt. It extends from Ayrshire and Renfrew on the west to Fife and Angus on the east, and includes the great cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee. To the south of that we have the Border counties, of agricultural and pastoral trend, which are the home of the hosiery and woollen industries. To the north-west we have the great area of the Highlands and Islands, where the main industries may be said to be forestry, agriculture, fishing and beauty—with inaccessibility. It is on that point that I should like to detain your Lordships for a few moments.

In relation to the trunk road facilities, the position may be summarized by saying that it is essential to the proper development of Scotland that the five main focal points—Glasgow, Stirling and Edinburgh on the south of the industrial belt, and Perth and Dundee on the north of that belt—should be definitely connected by trunk roads by the shortest possible route. That has not been provided by this Bill. It is true that there is another road which drives up through central Scotland, without touching the two great cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and which links up with the main system coming through Stirling and crossing the Forth either at Stirling or at the Kincardine bridge.

I do not want to detain your Lordships at this hour with too detailed a description of the needs of the north and northwest, but we must not shut our eyes to those needs, because in that part of Scotland roads are the one means of communication available for the life-blood of the country. It is only by roads that they can get their necessities of life and bring the products of their industry to market. I feel, therefore, that there is a very strong case for an extension of the trunk road system in the north and northwest, and I was very glad to notice that the Minister, in his reply in another place, was fairly sympathetic to the plea brought forward by members representing those constituencies. He indicates that a case had been made, or could be made, for a road right round the North-West of Scotland, and that it would receive further consideration.

But I must press here and now to-day, and at a later stage if necessary, the case of the industrial belt. I think it is essential that the five points which I have mentioned should be linked by the shortest possible available route. There is one terrible omission from the provisions of the Bill in that respect, and that is the link in the Great North Road, Ago, from Edinburgh to Inverkeithing. I brought this point before your Lordships when the original Trunk Roads Bill came before the House in 1936, and I am bringing it up again to-day in spite of the fact that it has been debated at length in another place and that the Minister has so far declined to include it in his programme for the present Bill. If your Lordships will look at the map, you will see that Ago starts from Edinburgh and goes to South Queensferry at the Forth Bridge. Ago continues from North Queensferry through Inverkeithing and Cowdenbeath to Perth. The Minister in his wisdom has added the route from Inverkeithing to Perth, but has so far declined to put the essential part of this road from Edinburgh to Inverkeithing on the list of trunk roads, so that those who would use the road north from Edinburgh have to travel via Kincardine bridge to Inverkeithing, a distance of some 45 miles, as against 15 miles by a direct route.

I am making this plea, and propose to continue it by a definite Amendment if necessary at the Committee stage, because I feel that it is a vital point for Scotland at the present time. In his reply to the debate in another place, the Minister took refuge behind the statement that he had an agreement with certain local authorities for the construction of a bridge across the Forth at Queensferry. There is no substance in that argument. The bridge has not yet come into existence; it has not even yet passed its Provisional Order, although we are doing all we can to promote it. It is, I admit, an agreement which has been made with regard to the construction of a bridge, but I am dealing with the road as it exists to-day, the road from Edinburgh to Queensferry and from Queensferry to Inverkeithing, which takes a large volume of traffic and which has to be maintained. There is a ferry from North to South Queensferry which is severely overburdened by the traffic which it has to carry, and undoubtedly the traffic on this road is increasing from day to day. It is that road, a distinct and vital link in the shortest route from Edinburgh to Perth, which it is essential to raise to the position of a trunk road.

In the answer to which I have referred before, the Minister indicated that, if this matter were brought before him by a body interested in the subject and authorized to speak, he would be prepared to review it with a fresh mind. I indicate that that moment has now come, because last week the Fife County Council passed a unanimous resolution pressing for the inclusion of this road on the trunk road list. That resolution has been endorsed by the Corporation of Edinburgh, by the County of West Lothian, and by the burghs of Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline. The whole of them are authorities who have combined in this agreement with the Minister about the construction of the road bridge.

I therefore feel that the time has come when the Minister should be asked to re- view this decision. I ask it on the grounds of justice and common sense, because it is justice and it is common sense that this Great North Road should be, as it is in effect, the link joining Edinburgh, Perth and the Highlands. If this point is conceded it will not invalidate the agreement as regards the construction of the bridge; that will remain. If and when that happy day comes when the bridge and its approach roads are constructed at the cost of some £6,220,000, then I hope the Minister or his successor will, in justice and in fairness to the initiative and drive of the local authorities in Scotland who have made it possible, agree there and then to take it over and substitute it as a trunk road for the trunk road which I am now pressing he should include, the road from Edinburgh to Queensferry and from Queensferry to Inverkeithing.

4.42 p.m.

LORD SANDHURST

My Lords, in commending this Bill to your Lordships the noble Lord opposite devoted himself at considerable length entirely to the powers which the Bill gave, without adopting the attitude (which, I believe, would have commended itself to your Lordships much more) of suggesting how those powers were going to be used. We were told that new bridges and roads could be built and that new roads could be taken over, but no hint was given to us as to what priority in the nation's work that work of construction was going to take. I feel that until the Government do something rather more strenuous than they have already done to carry out their own 1936 Act, which they call the principal Act, and to do some of the work on the roads taken over under that Act, to take over a whole lot more roads would be really rather a waste of time. They have so much on their plate now that I do not feel they can cope with any more. I very much hope that some indication will be given to us of what it is proposed to do, but I must admit that I was very alarmed at words from the Minister in another place. On the Third Reading he said, "I think we have to contemplate a deluge of vehicles upon our modern roads." What really frightened me was the use of the word "modern" in connexion with our roads. If the Minister had used the words "existing roads," then I would have agreed with him. It really frightens me when a Minister describes our roads as modern, because he should be the first person to recognize that they are completely out of date.

The Bill also provides for improvements. An estimate has been given us of what is going to be spent on maintenance but we are told that it is not possible to give an estimate of what is going to be spent on improvements and new work. Surely we might be given some idea of how much it is proposed to spend in the next few years on new work in connexion with roads taken over under this Bill. At the present moment the Road Fund is getting, I believe, something in the neighbourhood of £75,000,000 to £80,000,000 a year from taxation of road users. Can we be told how much of that is going to be spent on this new scheme under this Bill? I do not think the country can be said to be asking too much if it claims that when the motorist, the road haulier, and other road users have put their hands very deep into their pockets, at least a reasonable proportion of the sum involved should be put back into the roads. Admittedly the roads have become looked upon more or less as the milch cow to feed the nation, but I think it is generally recognized that there is a limit to the amount of milk you can draw even from the best of cows, and it is also recognized that cows do not produce milk for ever; they have to have a year off and have a calf, during which time quite a lot of money is spent on them. I suggest that quite a lot of money might be spent on the nation's milch cow to give it the assistance which will enable it to become more productive. If you increase your roads and make them safer, they are going to be more productive of taxation. I do beg the Government to give us some information as to the priority they are going to give to this work, both in men and material, and the amount of money they propose to spend on it.

4.45 p.m.

VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN

My Lords, while welcoming this Bill, I do consider the title might be better if it were known as the Trunk Roads Make-do-and-Mend Bill. It seems to me to be very largely on those lines. One is bound to recognize that the Government is having a troublesome time over money, materials and labour; and, to a greater extent than is usually recognized, demands for labour for roads do clash with the housing problem, for the reason that access roads to houses must be provided. Cement enters very largely into the construction of roads and also into housing, and therefore the two are not so separate as might at first appear. However, I consider that insufficient attention has been given to American practice and to reinforced concrete in the design of roads. It seems to me that the scope of this Bill is completely inadequate for the size of the problem which confronts the country. I am also sorry that no provision appears to have been made for extensive research into traffic and general methods of highway construction such as is done in other countries. No attempt at standardization of trunk roads appears to be contemplated, and I think that is rather unfortunate.

I should like to illustrate what the problem may be in the near future. In 1933 the number of mechanically propelled vehicles was 2,285,326 and in 1938 it was 3,084,896. That gives an average annual increase of approximately 160,000 vehicles a year, allowing for vehicles being taken off the roads; that is the net result. That means that if we increase at that average speed over five years, by 1951 we may have over 4,000,000 vehicles on the roads. That assumption is based on the average increase between 1933 and 1938, but we must bear in mind that there has been an amazing growth of savings among the lower income levels. A large number of people have got tucked away, and will be able to use when the Chancellor allows them to have it, £300 and £400 to quite an amazing extent. That does seem to indicate to me that those people will very likely be investing in motor vehicles of one form or another and therefore there will probably be a far greater increase than there was in the past.

Not only that, but we are trying to increase our exports of motor vehicles, and that cannot be done without at the same time increasing home supplies. That is another reason why the figures are probably very much under-estimated. Then there is the enormous increase in service transport to be considered. A mechanized division on the road at proper convoy intervals stretches from London to York. That does not take account of R.A.F. transport which has become terrific, and of Navy transport. There will also be an increase in buses, or I hope there will, because that is necessary for transport in rural districts. All those things will make the roads much more congested than they are at present. Then there is the Alness Report. In your Lordships' House on November 21, 1945, the noble Lord, Lord Winster, said—I will try to quote his exact words if I may: From what I hear and have been told, I would say that the Report of the Alness Committee is a fixture on the Minister's desk, that the volume is always there and is constantly looked at by the Minister. That will be found in the Hansard Report of the proceedings in your Lordships' House on November 21, 1945. I wonder if the Minister has come to the part of that Report which states: The Committee are of opinion that powers delegated to the Ministry under the Trunk Roads Act, 1936, should be used with energy and with dispatch. I would like to suggest, also, that there should be added to his desk furniture a statement giving the daily accident figures, and the American publication Inter-Regional Highways, which is a report on the American methods of tackling the whole problem of the roads as it faces them. I think that would throw a very good light on how the Americans are tackling very much the same problem as that which confronts us. It would show, I am sure, that they are going down to first principles and tackling the matter from the bottom rather than patching up something that has grown up through the ages and is now perfectly inadequate in the roads system.

4.53 p.m.

LORD WALERAN

My Lords, I do not propose to detain your Lordships long at this late hour, but I should like to ally myself with what has been said by noble Lords who have spoken before me. I am very much in favour of the adoption of this Bill so far as it goes. We all of us, whatever the Party to which we belong, I think, realize, and so indeed do all thinking people in the whole community, that the modifying of our road system is vitally necessary not only from the point of view of preventing accidents but also that of increasing transportation facilities for industry.

I wonder if the noble Lord who is going to reply could tell me if in connexion with the increasing of the mileage of our trunk roads it is suggested that we shall never have autobahnen, and whether this is only a makeshift arrangement to tide us over a difficult period. Proper autobahnen or proper roads for vehicular traffic only, like those over which I drove in Germany the other day, unquestionably to my mind would be an immense advantage to us. Just doing away with a few bottlenecks and making footpaths along our trunk roads will never get rid of accidents or speed up traffic. By doing that sort of thing we are only putting new cloth into an old coat. I feel that we should face this problem and put first things first. We know that a very large number of accidents occur in congested areas. Therefore let us, instead of making a lot of double carriageways, at this moment, get rid of our dangerous areas in towns, make ring roads and make sure that our through routes through towns are properly fenced off with railings on the pavements, which I understand have proved one of the most effective means of preventing accidents in our cities. We have got to cut our coat according to our cloth. Our position with regard to labour, materials and finance is difficult, so let us deal with the black spots first. In this connexion, I have been asked to raise the question whether the Ministry can tell local authorities where by-passes are going to be built round towns which are on these trunk roads. The point is that some of these towns have been "blitzed," and the local authorities do not know how to get on with their planning unless they are informed fairly soon whether the trunk roads will go through these towns or a by-pass is going to be made round them.

Dual carriageways were talked about by Lord Walkden. I would like to know if it is the intention of the Ministry, in due course, to have dual carriageways on all our trunk roads. I feel that dual carriageways are necessary, but I am convinced that they should be regarded purely as roads for self-propelled vehicles and that nothing else should be allowed on them. Many years ago Jules Verne wrote some famous books, among them The Clipper of the Clouds and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea which were remarkably prophetic in some respects. At the time, people thought him a little peculiar, but since then, we have developed such things as jet-propelled aeroplanes. Although I cannot visualize myself sitting behind a jet-propelled motor car (or certainly not very close to it) there is no doubt that some day things which we cannot now foresee may come to pass and I suggest therefore that we do not spend too much money on improving things which, in a short time, may well be out of date.

4.58 p.m.

EARL HOWE

My Lords, like others of your Lordships who have spoken, I naturally welcome this Bill. But it does seem to me that there are many matters connected with the roads to-day which have received no mention whatever, either in the Bill or in the speech of the noble Lord who introduced it. What I want to know is what is really going to be the policy of the Ministry of Transport with regard to our road system in the years to come. Naturally, to-day nothing much can be done because of the enormous demands on labour. Probably the present difficult labour situation will continue for another two or three years. Therefore, I suppose, we shall have to endure the roads and the road system which we know to-day for another two or three years before they can be sensibly improved. I want to know what the policy of the Ministry of Transport is going to be in the future. I know what the policy was in the past because I had the honour of serving on a Public Safety Committee of the Ministry of Transport at one time. It brought one closely in touch with the permanent officials of that Department. It was in the time of Mr. Hore-Belisha, who was then Minister of Transport, and in those days we were quite clearly told that the policy of the Ministry was the improvement of existing roads and not the making of new roads at all. It was intended to improve existing roads. That policy was steadily pursued right up to the outbreak of the war, and I believe that it has been pursued since. The result is that to-day you have the ordinary Class A1 road, which leads to some village or town, probably very congested with traffic throughout most of its length. Take, for example a road like the Great North Road. At many points you find great congestion, then you come to a by-pass round a particular town or village. Traffic strikes away round the bypass and then is led back on to the original road where it creates an almost impossible bottleneck. The results of that can be foreseen on the outskirts of any of our great cities when conditions become anything like normal. In fact, they can be seen in a minor form even to-day. If you go on the roads now you can get a foretaste of what is going to happen. I should like to recall to the mind of the noble Lord who is going to reply the conditions which obtained around London before the war and with which, I am sure, he was as well acquainted as I. Miles and miles of queues of motor cars could be seen piling up along any road you liked to take on the outskirts of London. We want to know what is going to be the policy of the Ministry of Transport. I submit to your Lordships that there are things that one can do. For instance, the noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, referred to a report about inter-regional highways. There was a message from the President of the United States to Congress and I should like to read your Lordships a small passage out of it. This is what President Roosevelt told Congress: In the interests of economy I suggest that the actual route of new highways be left fluid. It is obvious that if a fixed route he determined in detail the purchase price of rights of way will immediately rise, in many cases exorbitantly; whereas if two or three routes—all approximately equal—are surveyed, the cheapest route in relation to right of way can be made the final choice. The second recommendation which he made was even more important. He said: Second, experience shows us that it is in most cases much cheaper to build a new highway where none now exists rather than to widen out an existing highway at a cost to the Government of acquiring or altering present developed frontages. It seems to me that those passages sum up the whole highway position far better than I at any rate could attempt to do. They go to the very root of the whole problem. I think it was Viscount Stonehaven who alluded to the Minister of Transport's desk furniture. The Minister's desk furniture is the Alness Report but there is another piece of desk furniture to which I should like to draw his attention—the report which Sir Charles Bressey got out for the Minister of Transport. It is an exhaustive report and it deals with all sorts of things which have received no mention and may not have received—I have not read the debates in another place very carefully—much attention there. Questions have been asked to-day about dual carriageways. The noble Lord who introduced the Bill talked about them and the powers the Minister is going to have. On page 27 of Sir Charles Bressey's report, he indicates that radial roads out of London—.there are 20 of them—contain 525 miles in the aggregate inside the London traffic area. Of this 525 miles there is only one per cent. which has dual carriageways of two lanes each. Thirty-two per cent. have a single carriageway of two lanes up to twenty-six feet wide and forty-seven per cent. have a single carriageway of three lanes. That single carriageway of three lanes is one of the most prolific: sources of accidents on the highways today. Motor cars endeavouring to pass other vehicles simply meet in the middle. Somehow they try to get themselves out of a difficulty but more often than not it results in a skid and a casualty. There is forty-seven per cent. of this 525 miles with a single carriageway with three lanes and only ten per cent. with a single carriageway of four lanes, and so it goes on.

There are other matters I should like to mention. What is going to be the policy of the Minister with regard to level crossings? Most of the main arterial roads in this country are crossed at some point or another by level crossings which lead to enormous congestion of traffic. It is the congestion of traffic which leads to accidents, either directly or indirectly, and we want to do something positive to reduce accidents. I suggest that we should do everything we can to reduce accidents on the highway. Your Lordships will be familiar with many level crossings. On the road to the south coast through Reigate there is one; there is one at Crawley, and another on the great road to the west at Sunningdale. All these level crossings on main arterial roads should no longer exist and it should be the policy of the Minister to get rid of them as soon as possible.

There are no fewer than forty level crossings in the metropolitan traffic area over Class I roads and twenty-four over Class II roads. There are 138 level crossings over unclassified roads in the metropolitan area. That will give your Lordships an idea of what that particular problem is. But there is another question to which I should like to draw your attention in this particular Bill. Clause 4 of this Bill gives the Minister additional powers relating to side roads connected with trunk roads, and here I find what is the most astonishing proposition, that it is the business of a Minister not to make roads or maintain them but to stop them up. It sounds to me an extraordinary position.

Modern road engineering is far in advance of the old practices of the past. The noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, alluded, as I have said, to the Inter-Regional Highways Report. It is an admirable report with many illustrations of suggested ways of treating road intersections, and it is possible so to construct road intersections that there need be no interruption to traffic which wants to go from one road to another or to get across it. Many of you know the remarkable system of roads outside New York on the way to Long Island where fourteen roads are intersected. No line of traffic crosses another and the traffic goes on at a steady speed, neither very fast nor very slow. It can go from one point to another without having to cross another line of traffic.

These are the sort of things we want in this country, particularly on our congested roads, and I am quite certain that the congestion we knew before the war is just going to be child's play in the years to come unless something really drastic is done. It is a question of road safety and of saving life, and in saving life ought we to be too parsimonious. The Minister is asking for great powers under this Bill. I am sure your Lordships will be only too glad to give him all the powers he asks for and, like other speakers, I wish the Minister had taken powers to take over the whole road system of the country if by doing so something could be done to reduce the appalling toll of accidents on the highway to-day. I hope this Bill will receive a Second Reading, and if the Minister is able to give me a reply on what his policy is going to be I need hardly say how grateful I shall be.

5.9 p.m.

THE MINISTER OF CIVIL AVIATION (LORD WINSTER)

My Lords, this has been a most interesting debate and I am sure my right honourable friend the Minister of War Transport will be extremely gratified by the good reception this Bill has had from your Lordships. Each of the noble Lords who has spoken has expressed his support and approval of the Bill, although most have said that it does not go far enough. Lord Llewellin prefaced his remarks by saying that, while he welcomed the Bill, he felt that it did not go far enough. It gives me great pleasure to hear a Conservative blaming the Labour Party for not going too far. We must endeavour to be more revolutionary. I understood that the noble Lord said that he approved of trunk roads being centralized under the Minister. In that we are going back to the practice of the first great road-makers in this country, the Romans, who, fifteen hundred years ago, built up a very remarkable system of roads in this country under a completely centralized authority. They were roads of excellent construction, admirably maintained, and they had a very good record in regard to road accidents, the chariot drivers not being road hogs. The noble Lord likes this Bill, though going back to one of his earlier incarnations, he thought of dried eggs, and compared the Bill with dried eggs. I am not very fond of dried eggs either. The noble Lords, Lord Woolton and Lord Llewellin, certainly have got one great achievement to their record, and that is that they did, by their work at the Ministry of Food, disprove the old proverb "that you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs." That has now been shown to be possible.

Coming to some of the points made by the noble Lord, may I inform him that the highway authorities can at any time make representations to the Minister to add new roads to the First Schedule, and the Minister will give proper consideration to such requests. There is no need to wait for the Minister to take the initiative. The highway authorities can take the initiative in that matter and approach the Minister with their suggestions. The noble Earl, Lord Elgin, made a record in his speech. He used the time-honoured phrase that he did not wish to detain your Lordships at this late hour, but he created a record by stating that at 4.33, which in my experience is the earliest at which I have ever heard that suggestion used. I thought the noble Earl made an admirably clear statement of Scotland's position. It is quite true, as he felt, that the Bill does not approach the ideal, but we are circumscribed at the present moment by what labour and materials permit us to do. We cannot achieve the ideal at this moment. Labour and materials prevent us from doing that. Then the noble Earl, of course, came very quickly to the heart of his speech. That was the matter of the Forth Bridge. He used a phrase which, if he will forgive me for saying so, I did not like very much, because he said the Minister, when speaking in the other place, took refuge behind the statement about an agreement with the local authorities. Well there is no question of taking refuge, as this was an agreement made between the Ministry and the local authorities, and it is not taking refuge, in the sense in which the phrase was used, to quote the terms of the agreement. May I remind your Lordships of the terms of that agreement? There is an agreement between the Ministry of War Transport and the local authorities to build the Forth Bridge as and when it becomes possible according to our list of priorities on a grant-in-aid basis under which the Ministry will contribute 75 per cent., and the local authorities accept that agreement.

With regard to what the noble Earl said about this Bill not taking the Scottish problem as a national whole, in fact Scotland has as high a percentage of trunk roads as England and Wales, except for the link across the River Forth, which we all know is a fact. Except for that gap, Glasgow, Stirling, Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee are linked by trunk roads. The ferry service at Queensferry has recently been improved and is now considered to be reasonably adequate. On the turn of events, however, the Minister will have to review the position, and if he gives his approval the roads in question can be taken over as trunk roads.

Then we had a very interesting speech from the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, who complained that our roads are completely out of date. I would not go quite so far as to say that. I do not want to use a cliché, but there has been a war, and no doubt some of them have fallen into arrears, but I would not like to commit myself to saying that our roads are out of date. The work on trunk roads will receive whatever priority is possible bearing in mind the availability of labour and materials. The Minister with his resources will, of course, be far better able to get the work done than the local highway authorities. As regards highway policy generally, and trunk roads in particular, the Minister hopes to make a statement very shortly in the House of Commons indicating the rate and pace at which work and expenditure will proceed. The Minister has stated that all roads should be made fit for the traffic on them, and that is, in a nutshell, his policy in this matter.

The noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, called attention to American practice. I rather sympathize with the noble Viscount, because my attention has been drawn almost every day to American practice where civil aviation is concerned. Really I can assure the Noble Viscount that our engineers are very familiar indeed with American road engineering practice. With reference to what the noble Viscount said about research, there is a road research laboratory where work is always proceeding on road research, particularly with a view to getting better services and safety for traffic. I can assure the noble Viscount that work proceeds actively at that research laboratory.

VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN

The point which I did not make clear, and which I meant to make clear, was that our research, as we know, has been going on in connexion with what one might call the detailed aspects of the problem, none the less important, but I do not think it has been tackled from the traffic angle, which is the basis and the beginning of the American method of dealing with the same problem.

LORD WINSTER

Research proceeds into road engineering problems and particularly into the question of greater safety for traffic, which involves the traffic angle. I assure the noble Viscount the two aspects of the work are related. Although undoubtedly there is a very great deal to admire about American engineering practice, I should be very reluctant indeed to admit that our road engineers are in any way inferior in ability to their opposite numbers either in America or in Germany. No doubt the number of licensed motor vehicles will greatly increase. The noble Lord anticipated 4,000,000 vehicles in 1951. I have seen same even more startling figures which anticipate 12,000,000 by 1963! It would be very terrifying, only I shall not happen to be in one of them, I imagine. No doubt, however, the number of licensed motor vehicles will greatly increase and the roads will have to be improved upon. That is the problem which any Minister of Transport will have to face. Again I beg the noble Viscount to remember that the war years have been a very considerable handicap indeed to rapid progress in these matters. No Minister of War Transport has been able to do what he would have wished to do during the war years. We do start with that very serious disadvantage, that six years' handicap in progress.

The noble Lord, Lord Waleran, was also kind enough to welcome the Bill with the modification "so far as it goes". I can assure him that special consideration will be given to black spots where large numbers of accidents occur. That is done, and I can assure him that that matter always does receive constant attention in the Ministry of War Transport. Again I must thank the noble Lord for reminding me of that work of Jules Verne, The Clipper of the Clouds, which I must read again. He is quite right in saying that the anticipation shown there is remarkable, and no one will cross to America in one of the Boeings without remembering what he wrote on that subject. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, must always be listened to with great respect when he speaks on the question of roads, or traffic, or road safety. He has, I know, devoted great skill and attention to these matters; he speaks with authority and what he says must command respect. He asked me what will be the policy of the Ministry of War Transport in the years to come. I say again, the Minister's general policy will be to make the roads fit for traffic as soon as it is reasonably possible. This is bound to be a blend of improvement and of new construction. The noble Earl asked me if the policy was to be one of improvement or of new construction. That is the answer: it must be a blend of improvement and of new construction. The noble Earl also, like other speakers, called attention to American practice. But it is no good inviting a comparison with another country unless the conditions are reasonably comparable. Many other countries are lucky in having more space in which to work, in being able to begin on a new slate and in not being committed to an old system in very congested surroundings. One has to take those matters into account when comparing the position here with the position in other countries. But, as I have already said, the noble Earl may be quite sure that the practice in other countries is carefully studied and that what can be usefully incorporated into our practice is done.

One or two speakers have called attention to my remark about the furniture on the Minister's desk. I have no doubt whatever that the Report of Sir Charles Bressey also adorns his desk. We have not at all forgotten Sir Charles Bressey's Report. But may I remind the noble Earl of the much later Report of Sir Patrick Abercrombie on the planning of Greater London. This latter report of Sir Patrick's is under examination by the Government and is being discussed with the London County Council. The noble Earl rather departed from the limited subject of trunk roads to the general highway system of the country. May I remind him that this is the Trunk Roads Bill and not a general highways policy Bill.

EARL HOWE

Would you mention level crossings?

LORD WINSTER

The noble Earl took the words out of my mouth: I was just coming to that. Certainly it is the opinion of the Minister that level crossings should be abolished as soon as possible. That is agreed ground. As to taking over level crossings at this moment, the answer as regards level crossings on trunk roads is Yes, the Minister does intend to take powers to deal with them. I have endeavoured to answer the questions.

THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE

I did not like to interrupt the noble Lord in the course of his speech, but I should like to be sure I am right in my interpretation of what he said about my submission: that is, that the Minister will now give consideration to the matter with a view to bringing this road into the present Bill.

LORD WINSTER

I will repeat the words I used in reply to the noble Earl, which were that on the new turn of events the Minister will have to review the position, and if the case is proved the roads in question can be taken over as trunk roads.

THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE

In the present Bill?

LORD WINSTER

I would not answer, in the present Bill. I shall have to consult my right honourable friend about that. I am sure the noble Earl will agree that I could not give such an undertaking without consultation with my right honourable friend.

THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE

I only meant that consideration will be given in order that it might be done.

LORD WINSTER

I am sure my right honourable friend will have the speech of the noble Earl brought to his attention and will consider the points the noble Earl has made. I have answered the various questions put to me by various noble Lords in the debate. There is a great deal that I would like to say, but at this late hour I will, out of consideration to your Lordships, refrain from saying it. But I would like just to make this remark before I sit down. My reading of history is that countries flourish while they are active about their communications. But when you find that a country begins to neglect its roads and its system of communications, it is from that moment that you see decadence and decline setting in in that country. We have had a lot of melancholy croakings about our own situation following on the war, but I say that this Trunk Roads Bill which we are introducing today, which shows the determination of the Government and of the country to press on with its roads and with its communications, to improve and to extend them, is in itself a proof of the virility of this country and of our determination in the future to play our proper part in the world.

On Question, Bill read 2a and committed to a Committee of the whole House.