ROAD CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE

HL Deb 09 July 1952 vol 177 cc926-68

2.43 p.m.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their future policy regarding road construction and maintenance, in view of the probability of increasing traffic; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I was emboldened to put this Motion upon the Order Paper because in the White Paper on Transport Policy (Cmd. 8538) Her Majesty's Government clearly envisage an extension of road transport. In fact, paragraph 9 of the White Paper says that road transport will play an "expanding part in the transport system"; and in paragraph 15, the Paper again refers to the expansion of road haulage. I hold the view, shared I think by many of your Lordships, and also by a great number of expert authorities outside your Lordships' House, that our main arterial routes in this country are now carrying over an economic capacity traffic, and I cannot think that Her Majesty's Government, in planning for an extension of road transport, have not also planned an extension of our road system.

In moving this Motion I do not intend to refer at all to the road accident problem. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has a Motion upon the Order Paper dealing with that matter which is to be debated in three or four weeks' time. I intend to centre my argument upon the roads of this country as an integral part of this country's industrial equipment. I should like to look upon this debate today as an extension of two most interesting debates which we have had in your Lordships' House—one on Thursday of last week, when we debated what we all agree is the greatest problem confronting this country, that of the balance of payments, and, secondly, the debate which we had yesterday on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill. I followed with great interest and, as I expressed at the time, approbation what the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, said when we were considering this country's position to fight in the export markets. In the debate on the balance of payments the noble Viscount said (I quote from the OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 177, Col. 691): To-day, everything turns on price and delivery dates. It will be very easy to price ourselves out of the market. Do not let us forget that increased prices, increased charges, in the basic industries like coal, transport and power affect all other industries. The noble Viscount went on to say, when he was dealing with capital investment (I quote from Col. 692): … we have to be careful that we do not reduce this too much—we have to try to restrain home investment; but there is a limit to which it is wise to go, if one takes the long view. Then, in winding up the debate on the Finance Bill in your Lordships' House last night, when he was talking of productivity, the noble Viscount quoted these words of Lord Pakenham (OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 177, Col. 921): After all, we have all been saying for some years that there is a need for increased production. And the noble Viscount went on to add: What I think is new in it to-day, and what I think is hopeful, is that both in the last debate"— that is, the debate to which I have already referred— and in this, and, indeed, in speeches of people of all political complexions, there is a realisation that what is needed to-day is not merely increased production but increased production without rising costs—increased production at a price which will not price us out of the markets of the world. The noble Viscount in his long political career has given utterance to many truths, but I doubt whether he has ever uttered anything with a greater content of truth than that.

So when we talk of productivity, a great many people seem to assume that increased productivity is just a case of more sweat and more elbow-grease. It is nothing of the kind. There has been a great deal of very high-powered investigation: productivity groups have crossed the Atlantic and gone to America and they have come back and have universally said one thing—that the American worker does not work as hard as the British worker, but productivity in America is higher than in this country because the American has more horse-power to his hands. If British industry had attempted, since 1945, to raise the exports of this country to the height they have reached, or to increase our productivity to the level it has attained, with the same antiquated, out-of-date and worn-out industrial equipment that we possessed in 1938, we as a country should have found ourselves bankrupt. Yet to-day, for our main arterial routes, we are relying on practically the same road system as that which we had before the war.

The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, talked about taking the long view and taking the short view. Unfortunately, on the question of road development we have always taken the short view. This is not a Party matter. Every political Party in this country stands in the dock. Every political Party sits in a glass house, and it ill becomes any one of them to throw stones at another. We have never given the attention to our main arterial lines of communication that they deserve. I suppose the cynical would say that the reason is, of course, that there are no votes in roads. But I prefer to put it another way. I think it is due to the fact that no one has yet realised the extent to which the main road arteries of this country are an integral part of our industrial plant and equipment. That, in turn, is due to the fact that ordinary people—and, I must admit, quite a number of politicians—have not appreciated the set-up of British industry. They have not realised that our main roads in this country are but conveyor belts outside our factories; they are only an extension of the conveyor belts inside the walls of our production factories.

We have in this country a total of 183,821 miles of roads, but that includes all kinds of roads—trunk roads, Class I roads, Class II, Class III roads and unclassified roads. For the point of my submission this afternoon there are about 27,775 miles of trunk and Class I roads with which I am mainly concerned. On those roads to-day we have 925,000 goods vehicles, 136,000 public service vehicles, 2,258,000 motor cars, and with the odds and ends there is a total of nearly 4,500,000 vehicles using the roads of the country. Since 1938 the goods vehicle traffic has increased by 59 per cent., and bus and coach traffic by 34 per cent. And 70 per cent. of all goods traffic in this country is now carried by road.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE CO-ORDINATION OF TRANSPORT, FUEL AND POWER (LORD LEATHERS)

Did the noble Lord say since 1939?

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

No, since 1938. As I was saying, 70 per cent. of all the goods traffic transported in this country is carried by road.

LORD HAWKE

Is that tonnage or ton-miles?

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

Tonnage. This situation is understandable when we consider the saving in packaging, the saving in manpower loading and unloading and the special vehicles that have been constructed to carry special traffics.

I am not going to weary your Lordships with a lot of figures, but I have two or three more to give you. In 1950, out of a total of £1,600,000,000 spent on all forms of transport and travel, £1,220,000,000, or more than 75 per cent., was spent on road transport. This represented about 11.5 per cent. of the national income of £10,600,000,000. In 1951, it is estimated, the expenditure on motor vehicle operation alone was £1,400,000,000, or some 12.5 per cent. of the national income. That is the extent of the development of road transport. And Her Majesty's Government, by their policy as set out in the White Paper, envisage an increase. How are we going to carry that at an economic speed and cost? I have told your Lordships that our main arterial highways are trafficked to the limit; they are overburdened, and, as the years go by, slower and slower do these exterior conveyor belts run. What is going to happen to our production costs? What is going to happen to our productive capacity? What is going to happen to costs and prices of our productive industry in the export markets of the world? That is a point which I beg your Lordships to consider very seriously, because our position in the world markets does not altogether depend upon our quality products. Mass production is the only method by which the benefits of mechanisation and the machine will be brought to the masses of the people; and we have to remember that, in the last analysis, the test of efficiency in world markets will be cost and price.

Those of your Lordships who have had any experience of production in some of our huge mass-production factories will know what "time study" is and how our manufacturers (the noble Lord the Secretary of State knows this as well as I do) spend thousands of pounds on the best brains in order to devise methods by which they can shave farthings off production costs. To save a fraction of a penny on an operation is a very great achievement. If they have to slow down their main conveyor line in a production factory something tragic happens to their costs. I do not know whether your Lordships have ever been in a modern production factory. Anyone who has will know that the main conveyor belt dare not stop; ancillary conveyor lines come into it, timed to a split second. On and on that conveyor line goes. A split part of a second may cost the main assembly factory thousands of pounds. Yet the ancillary factories supplying it are hundreds of miles away. The majority of people, and, if I may respectfully say so, I think some of your Lordships, are suffering under the illusion that a product is made in the factory which bears its name. Nothing of the kind. We have built up industry in this country on what I might call the fabricated system, in which our huge plants are assemblies fed by hundreds of factories spread over the country.

I am indebted to two of our largest motor car manufacturers for giving me information which I confess staggered me, although I have spent all my life in this industry. They are two of the biggest motor car manufacturers, who are exporting very high quotas, among the highest in an industry which has done a remarkable job for our export trade. One of them tells me that his factory draws its raw materials, semi-finished materials, bought-out assemblies and components from 750 different factories, at an average distance from his works of from 100 to 120 miles. He continues: Approximately 700 road trucks per day come inside of our works bringing these assemblies. On many occasions when stocks are low we are dependent on keeping the line going by getting truck-loads in practically every hour. The other manufacturer says that his works draw their supplies from 450 different factories, from as far north as Motherwell. The average distance from the works is 110 to 130 miles. He adds: We receive 900 tons of material daily by between 100 and 200 lorries every day. That is the extent of the external conveyor lines feeding these factories.

LORD LLEWELLIN

My Lords, may I ask whether all the 900 tons come by road? Surely most of it comes by rail.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

I am told that they receive 900 tons daily, carried by between 100 and 200 lorries. The other works receive their supplies by 700 lorries from all parts. When I tell your Lordships that this factory is situated about forty miles east of London, not far from the River Thames, I think your Lordships will know what factory I am talking about. There are 700 lorries coming into that factory from all over England and Scotland every day. That gives some idea of the extent to which our main trunk roads are the conveyor lines of British industry.

The dispersal of industry is a settled policy of this country, as much of this Government as of the late Government. From 1945 until April 30, 1952, nearly £100,000,000 was spent in the erection of new factories and on extensions to existing factories in the development areas. The exact figure is £96,828,000. That is the amount of money that has been spent on buildings alone in the dispersal of industry. What have we spent on roads? Let us take the steel area of the North-East coast and the huge development there, so congested that the cost of transport is high. Let us take the North-West coast, with Whitehaven, Workington and Maryport, where they had to exist for years on steel and coal. For many years the figure of unemployed in this area stood at 82 per cent. To-day, there is hardly an unemployed man there. The diversity of industries which have been established there is one of the miracles of post-war development. But has any of your Lordships ever tried to get there by road? The noble Lord, Lord Rochdale, lives there and he knows the position as well as I do. One can get to the North-West coast only by making a large detour to the north through Carlisle or to the south through Broughton-in-Furness. When I was there talking to the manufacturers who had settled in the area to produce this diversity of goods, they told me that the major content of their price make-up was transport costs. Every scrap of raw material which they need has to go in, and every finished article has to come out, mainly by road. They said to me: "It is all right while we are in a sellers' market, when costs and prices do not matter too much, but as soon as the east wind blows and we get into fierce price competition, this will once again become a depressed area, because we cannot compete owing to the lack of transport facilities." These are hard facts, but facts that must be faced.

Take the industrial development in Wales. Take the great steel mills at Margam—a monument (to British enterprise—upon which was spent the best part of £70,000,000. Inside that huge steelworks were built about seven miles of roads. But when you some out of the main entrance you come on to a second-class country road. We started to build a new South Wales trunk road. We built a few miles from Neath and a few miles from Bridgend, and these stretches of road stood for years before we could build a bridge over the Neath at Jersey Marine because successive Treasuries said we could not have any more money. Take the huge factory of British Nylon Spinners, which went to a development area, to Pontypool. They did not want to go there; they went there under the scheme for the dispersal of industry, and I do not think they regret it. They have done a wonderful job. They have trained unemployed Welsh miners and disabled men into some of the finest of skilled operators. Every scrap of their raw material has to come by road from the North-East Coast, and every scrap of finished yarn has to go back to the Yorkshire textile mills to be woven and made up. Look at their transport costs. I give your Lordships these examples, but I could tell you a much longer story, including hundreds of similar cases.

While we have dispersal of industry, and have spent millions in lifting up the depressed areas—£100,000,000 on buildings alone—in the same six years we have spent only £160,000,000 on roads, in new construction and maintenance. In passing, your Lordships will be interested to know that during those six years we have collected £1,000,000,000 in taxation from those who used the roads—but I am not dealing with the taxation issue this afternoon. Another case I could take is the construction of a development area factory site, a trading estate, with some of the most beautiful factories one could imagine. This was a Government-sponsored scheme. Concrete roads were built, but we never built a road to it over the last mile: for that distance one had to go up a country lane. There is something wrong when that can happen. The only real main artery in Wales is that which runs across the north of the valleys called the Head of the Valley Main Road, and that was built by the unemployed in the depression of 1926–1930. I could cite many other cases, but I will not, because I do not want to take up too much of your Lordships' time.

But what is the cost of this congestion on our main arterial industrial highways, as I will call them? There are two kinds of cost—that of essential personal travel and the other of the transport of goods. Some of these factories I have mentioned, especially those in South Wales, are in the heart of the mining areas, because they were put there to find employment for the unemployed miners and their families. The workers all have to be taken to and from their work by motor-bus. I believe that the employees at the great Dunlop Factory at Hirwaun, at the top of the Aberdare Valley, come from the mining villages for twenty miles around. I have here some interesting figures of the cost of essential travel. The petrol consumption of a country bus is 11.3 miles per gallon—I am talking now of public service transport—whereas in congested areas, such as Manchester, Glasgow, and London, it is only 9.3 miles per gallon. The average speed of a rural bus is about eighteen miles an hour; in London it is under eight miles an hour. In petrol consumption alone your Lordships can calculate the cost of this congestion. But in operating costs the figure is much higher, because all bus drivers and conductors are paid by the hour. It is estimated that the approximate figure to-day spent on wages for drivers and conductors is about £70,000,000 a year. So that every mile per hour lost in the average speed costs us about £5,000,000 a year in drivers' and conductors' wages alone. A spokesman of London Transport said that if they could increase the average speed of London buses by only one mile an hour it would save London Transport £2,000,000 a year. In that connection, it is interesting to note that the London Transport working deficit last year was £1,600,000.

It is difficult to ascertain accurate cost figures of running goods transport on roads which are unsuitable for bulk goods traffic. Investigations have been made, however, and I have arrived at certain figures. I calculate that if we had the motor roads envisaged in the Special Roads Act which went through your Lordships' House in 1949–800 miles of special motor roads which would by-pass all congested areas, so graded, up-hill and down, with bends, to give the most efficient operation—we should save £100,000,000 a year in production costs, or 32 per cent. of the present cost of the commercial and industrial vehicles which are running on the roads to-day which these new roads would replace. It is interesting to note that in America, where they have not such a traffic density as we have, they are now going in for turnpike roads, built by private enterprise, because the American thinks it is far cheaper to pay anything from 1 to 3½ cents per mile to transport himself and his goods than to put up with the congestion on some of the main roads. I should not for a moment recommend turnpike roads in this country—and the Secretary of State knows that he would not like it either, since the Government have already taken £1,000,000,000 in six years—£343,000,000 in the present year—from the road users and are not providing them with the roads I give that only as an illustration of the American assessment of the value of the relief of congestion.

In this country we have already spent £3,500,000 on new roads that cannot be used because we have not linked them up. One example is the Ashford by-pass and there are others. I have already told your Lordships of one on the South Wales road, through Jersey Marine, which stood there for years eating up capital. We have 3,000 bridges on our main trunk roads which some of the loads now carried cannot use. I make no complaint about the increase in the loads, but your Lordships who travel about the country by road to-day will have seen this huge equipment on these road transporters—equipment which cannot be carried by rail, because the tunnels and bridges on the railways are not big enough, and some of which take up half the width of the road. I am sorry that the noble and gallant Earl the Minister of Defence is not here, because I could tell him some graphic stories of tanks and tank transporters on A35 holding up mile after mile of traffic. Or I could tell the Secretary of State for Air of occasions when our roads have to carry half-dismantled aeroplanes. There is good reason for this, of course, and we must make our main arteries in this country suit the traffic, not attempt to make the traffic suit the main arteries.

I hope that I have made a case which will at least give the Secretary of State some grounds for giving consideration to the problem. We have not had a really effective road plan in this country since Lloyd George started one in 1909. We have had many plans, but nothing put into operation. This year it is envisaged that the Government will spend £33,000,000 on our roads, and that a further £34,000,000 will come out of the rates. That will be the total. As the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, said, we are facing a bitter battle; we cannot afford to price ourselves out of our export markets. This lack of arterial roads is one of the greatest contributory factors to our increasing costs. I put capital investment on our main industrial routes of this country as a factor in the future industrial prosperity of this country as high as, if not higher than, capital investment in power stations, oil refineries or anything else. We cannot afford to have this £100,000,000 build-up upon the cost and price structure of our essential industries.

I am not pleading this afternoon for any race tracks for private motorists; I am not pleading for any alteration to the Class III and some of the Class II roads. All I am pleading is that the Secretary of State should treat our main industrial highways, from our outlying factories to our industrial areas, and from our industrial areas to our ports, as being just as important as the plant and equipment in the factories which are turning out goods for export. I plead that he will resuscitate the ten year plan of the late Government, which envisaged an approximate expenditure, I think, of £100,000,000 a year. It is not, "Can we afford it?" It is, "Can we afford not to have it?" Again, as the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, so rightly said, we have to increase our productivity. It is no good hitting the donkey any harder. We shall not get this increased productivity by calling for more sweat and more elbow-grease. We shall get this extra productivity by increasing the horse-power in the hands of the worker and industry. I beg to move for Papers.

3.23 p.m.

LORD SANDHURST

My Lords, when I saw this Motion on the Order Paper, I wondered what form the debate would take. Was it going to be a case of "the pot calling the kettle black," or was it to be a case of the pot saying to the kettle, "For Heaven's sake polish yourself because I did not polish myself"? I am glad to hear that there is only an encouragement to polish. The noble Lord, the mover of this Motion, was in a singular position. The late Government passed the Special Roads Act, and they prepared a ten-year plan. I think one might say that that was "giving themselves the tools," and what I fail to understand is why, having obtained the tools, they never even started the job. However, it is something that they have now started to encourage the new Government to do so.

I could not help being considerably amazed to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, many words that I heard coming from those Benches when the Labour Government were in power, and one or two actual quotations from the speeches which I myself made, although they were not acknowledged. I cannot ignore accidents in this problem, as did the noble Lord. I believe that they have to be dealt with as part of the problem, and I propose to do so later. For the moment, however, I wish to deal with the question of the classified and unclassified roads. The noble Lord did not seem to think that the second- and third-class classified roads mattered very much. I disagree. I think they matter very much indeed. They carry the major portion of our foodstuffs, and they carry a tremendous amount from smaller factories. What is the position so far as these roads are concerned? The third-class road receives a grant of 50 per cent., the second-class road a grant of 60 per cent., and the first-class road a grant of 75 per cent. Of course, the unclassified roads, which serve the farms, do not get anything at all. But then farming was always rather regarded as something which need not be encouraged very much in this country.

Local authorities are in very much the same category as the Government. They do not want to do anything which is going to increase their demands on the public. They do not want to put up the local rates. The result is that, even if they get a grant, they think twice before they use it. I suggest that one of the first things the Government should do is to look at the first-, second- and third-class roads, and unclassified roads, throughout the country, and make special grants on top of those normally given. The present position is absurd, because when you get into some of the far country districts in North Wales, where the rateable value is very small, they just cannot raise the money to have decent roads: they have to have something extra from the Government. The Government should themselves take on responsibility for this work and exercise their power of giving a 100 per cent. grant for any type of road, whether classified or unclassified. After all, let us remember one thing. It was rather lightly glozed over by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, but it is a fact that the Government do not spend on the roads £1 in every £10 which they get from taxation of motor vehicles. That strikes me as being an absolutely scandalous position. Why should the ratepayer, who is also the motorist and the employer of labour and motor vehicles, pay for the roads in his taxation and in his rates? He is paying twice for the same thing. Do let us give him a square deal.

So far as accidents are concerned, they obviously have a heavy bearing on the cost of road transport to this country. It is obvious that, when an accident takes place, the local P.C. cannot be expected to adjudicate as to how much that accident was caused by one side, how much by the other side and how much by the layout, construction or maintenance of that road. When an accident takes place it should be automatic that the local highway surveyor carries out an inspection to see whether there was anything in the condition of the road to cause the accident. Where there are two accidents close together, then I suggest that the Ministry of Transport should send an inspector and let him make an independent investigation, because we have to recognise the fact that the roads can produce hazardous situations and unnecessary demands on the human element. Those hazardous situations slow down traffic. That is a point which has just been made by the noble Lord. We cannot afford to have our traffic slowed down by these unnecessary hazards. Still less can we afford to have the traffic brought to a stop by unnecessary crashes which put expensive vehicles off the road. Layout, construction and maintenance are of vital importance in ensuring that road hazards are removed; and until they are removed, the Government are failing in their duty. Their duty is to make the roads as safe as possible for the people who have to use them.

In making the roads safe, the Government would also ensure a free flow of traffic. A free flow of traffic is a thing which we all desire. It has been said that this country depends upon it. We still have in the Ministry of Transport the ten-year plan produced by the last Government. The present Government ought to be grateful to the last Government for having produced it. It is a first-class plan; it can do a tremendous amount of good; and it does not demand much cash at the present moment, because it starts with maintenance. Unless we maintain our roads properly to-day, and make up for some of the deficiencies of the last few years, our expenses tomorrow will be far more intolerable than they are at present. We shall have an infinitely heavier burden to bear; and, meantime, we shall be losing money not only through the deterioration of the roads but also through waste of time on the roads. We must get on at once with the maintenance of the existing roads and the improvement, where possible, of the hazardous places. Immediately this has been done, let us get on with proper roads that can take the place of some of those which at present are hopelessly inadequate.

3.33 p.m.

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, yesterday we were roaring for all-round economies when we were discussing the Finance Bill. To-day, the two noble Lords who have just spoken have been making impassioned appeals to the Government to embark on the great ten-year road plan which was introduced by the former Minister of Transport, Mr. Barnes, under the late Government. And, of course, they are quite right: this is a spending of money which is a saving of money—if I may use an "Irishism." Neither of the two noble Lords whose eloquence we enjoyed so much (perhaps I may be allowed to say that we are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, for bringing the matter forward) mentioned Scotland. I want to say a very few words about the lamentable plight of the Highland roads. My noble friend behind me, Lord Kirkwood, and my noble friend Lord Hall, have just returned from a long tour in Scotland and are sadly impressed by the utter neglect of many of the roads there. There are only two modern roads in the whole of Scotland—one up the East coast and one up the West coast. The vast hinterland of Scotland is almost completely neglected, so far as its roads are concerned. Lord Kirkwood, especially, has given me a heartrending account of the neglected condition of the roads of Scotland. I hope that the noble Lord who is to reply for the Government will say something about this matter and will do his best in that direction.

The other point I wish to make has not so far been mentioned by either of the noble Lords who have spoken. I must say one or two sentences about it—I refer to the appalling state of affairs in London to-day; a state of affairs which is getting worse. Heaven knows what it will be like next year. I was really rather doubtful whether I should get here at all to-day, in view of the state of affairs on the London roads. It was certainly doubtful at the beginning of the week, with the diversions which we had at that time. I hope that this problem will be tackled on a large scale before next year, when we shall have the Coronation and the great influx of visitors who are expected. This London situation certainly gets worse from year to year: we are gradually being, as it were, strangled. I am disgusted to see the vast numbers of enormous motor-coaches that are allowed into the centre of London. These coaches bring people from the provinces—and that, of course, is all to the good. But why should they come into the centre of London? Why could they not remain on the outskirts and the people be brought from that point by electric train? The coaches are parked in useful streets, causing further congestion. I think it is abominable that they should be allowed in central London at all. In fact, in my opinion, unless they have very good reasons for coming in, motor-cars ought not to be allowed within a certain circle.

The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, had some well-aimed arrows to shoot at the late Government; but he did praise the ten-year plan introduced by Mr. Barnes. It was indeed a magnificent plan, drawn up by great experts and it was acclaimed on all sides as being necessary. Why was it not carried out? I can give one reason, which was that Mr. Barnes was not in the Cabinet. Here was the Minister of Transport, a vitally important personage in the Government, not a member of the Cabinet; and he was overruled by successive Chancellors of the Exchequer. We have now the Government "overlord" system, which, in my view, has been most unfairly and most unjustly attacked. I like the Overlord system. For one thing, we have the Overlords in this House and can cross-examine them, argue with them, and discuss matters with them. The Overlord is a person of great power and eminence.

My noble friend spoke of there being no votes in road transport. Whether that is true or not, it does not affect the Overlords in this House: they can afford to look at the matter from a purely national point of view. If I may make a personal reference to the present Overlord of transport, who I understand is to reply to this debate, his record and achievements in times of great trouble in this country are such that we shall all feel confident that he will take a broad, national view of this and other problems. Further, if he will forgive my saying so, I believe that he has the forcefulness, the experience, and the mental calibre to force the right policy through the Cabinet. I hope that in this case we shall revive the great scheme of Mr. Barnes. It is the worst form of economy to allow our roads to go to pieces at the present time.

Let me give your Lordships an example. We have had quoted to us figures of vast sums raised to various forms of motor taxation. Lord Sandhurst and Lord Lucas of Chilworth referred to this. My estimate is about £340,000,000—that is in the various forms of duties on motor fuel, purchase tax, licences. and so on, during 1952 and 1953. How much of that is being ploughed back into road transport? I understand that the answer is, less than £30,000,000 a year since 1945. As my noble friend says, the situation is really grotesque. This is the sort of thing that is going on. Before 1939, before the Second World War, the Class I and Class II trunk roads were resurfaced, on an average, once in nineteen years once in nineteen years the surface was renewed. Now the roads are being resurfaced on an average once in forty-two years, and all the while traffic is increasing and getting heavier and faster. We just cannot go on like this. It means that our roads are being pounded to pieces and are becoming worse and worse. Those of your Lordships who travel about the country must have noticed this.

My noble friend referred to uncompleted road schemes. He referred particularly to the Ashford By-Pass. That is a scandalous example. That is a monument to inefficiency. The earth-works, drainage, bridges and so on are completed, but all work is stopped, when for the expenditure of £100,000 we could have one carriageway on this vitally important by-pass. One could multiply examples like that. My noble friend mentioned the 3,000 bridges. If I may elaborate that point for a moment, I would call your Lordships' attention to the fact that some of those 3,000 bridges up and down the country are 100 or even 150 years old. They are either too weak or too narrow, or they have not enough headroom. Is that problem going to be tackled? Arguments of this sort are, I think, altogether unanswerable. If the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, would give me his attention for a moment, I would say that I entirely support what he said about the country roads. They are of the greatest importance, not only to food production but to the smaller rural industries which we are trying to encourage, and the smaller factories which I am glad to see are springing up all over the country. My final word is on the question of cost and expenditure. The money spent on the roads is money spent within the country. The whole of the materials that we use in road construction are produced here. We are paying wages to our own people. It is capital expenditure which will bring a big return and reward over generations. On the other hand, neglect will injure our country in a serious manner, as my noble friend has pointed out.

I believe there is a danger ahead of us of an extension of the trade recession which has begun in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Some of my friends in the Midlands are beginning to show apprehension and are talking about a possible spread of unemployment to the Midlands. If that happens in the Midlands, then the rest of the country will be badly affected and we may have serious unemployment. Here, I quote the prophet Keynes who used to say that we should prepare capital expenditure schemes in good times and keep them in cold storage until the bad times come; until there is a recession or slump and there is unemployment. Then we can bring them out of the pigeon-holes and get to work; but we have to have our preparations made in advance. If we wait until the recession, until there is unemployment, until there is such an outcry from the road users that we have to act, and have no plans or schemes ready or costings, and so on, prepared, there are bound to be months and months of delay. It costs little to get the plans ready. Apart from whatever the noble Lord, Lord Leathers, chooses to reply, I hope that he can give us this promise, that at any rate the plans will be got ready—it is not a costly business—so that, if the anticipated but, I hope, unfounded fears of a recession are realised, we need lose no time in taking some of our unemployed people and putting them on to this kind of work.

I know it will be said: "But you cannot put textile workers on to road making." But, at any rate, you can train them. Nowadays, road making and road repairing are largely mechanised. There is wonderful modern equipment which has made it possible for a man with a certain amount of training to do twice or four times or even ten times the amount of work that his forefathers did in the old manual labour days. I think that modern labour can be made adaptable and elastic and used for that kind of work, or the preparatory work that goes with it. At any rate, a great deal of labour that may become unemployed could be put on to the roads, directly or indirectly. But, quite apart from that and from the Keynesian theory, I think the case made by my noble friend, Lord Lucas, from the point of view of the national economy is overwhelming. At present, with an inadequate transport system, you are adding to the costs of living; you are adding to the cost of production and making it more difficult to carry on our export trade; you are not helping the general economic development of the country and, in case of serious trouble (which Heaven forbid!), your strategic position will be serious. Quite apart from the question of using a future pool of unemployment perhaps for road work, the economic case for reviving the Barnes policy for the remodelling of the British road system is overwhelming. I most heartily support the two noble Lords who have already spoken.

3.48 p.m.

LORD LLEWELLIN

My Lords, I do not intend to occupy much of your Lordships' time. I am sorry if I shall be one of those who will throw a slightly cold douche on the idea that we can expend an unlimited amount of money and labour on a great road construction scheme at this time. We are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for raising this problem. I thought he did it in a most fluent speech. If he will allow me to say so, I fancied the speech was the more fluent probably because of the number of times he had practised it on the Treasury officials during his term of office as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport. It came out with a delightful, practised effect upon your Lordships' House at the present time. The only point in this debate that I could not quite understand was that made by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, when he followed up this plea for better roads for greater industrial efficiency by referring to roads in the Highlands of Scotland. That did not seem to me to come very happily in that context. Better roads there might bring us a couple of salmon or a couple of deer, or might enable a couple of people to take a ride in the Highlands. From that limited point of view, they are delightful things to have, if we can afford them.

LORD STRABOLGI

I rise in protest. The noble Lord is a very good fisherman and I must rise to that fly. If I had spoken of the Highlands of Wales, I suppose he would have supported me. The Highlands of Scotland are responsible for the most valuable product of this island—that is, men.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY)

And whisky!

LORD STRABOLGI

You can help to people them again by improving the side-roads off the few main roads.

LORD LLEWELLIN

I quite agree that the Highlands of Scotland produce a most wonderful race of men. I am not sure that it is not the lack of all our modern amenities which results in tougher citizens coming from the Highlands than from other parts of our Island home. However, it was quite true, as the noble Lord said, that I really threw that over as a kind of "fly," and I am glad he took it, as any good fisherman always does. In regard to the main question before us to-day, I am one of those who think that the roads of this country are pretty well maintained at this time. That may not be true of all counties. I know that one finds differences in going from one county to another. Recently, in my own home county of Dorset, the Post Office were laying a new telephone system down one of the main roads. For the moment, that road is not as good as it should be; but, quite wisely I think, they have been laying the cables under the main road, with manholes at about every 100 yards, so that they will not have to take the road up again. I believe that very soon that road will be back in first-class condition, as indeed are most of the trunk and Class I roads of this country.

It therefore becomes a question whether at this time we should embark on a large scheme such as that produced by Mr. Barnes when he was Minister of Transport—produced with a great flourish and enacted by Parliament, and then, unlike most Civil Service matters, not just left in the file until it became an Act of Parliament, but pushed into the file after it had become an Act of Parliament, nothing being done about it at all. Is this the time when we should embark upon an implementation of that scheme? It was a good scheme, and I hope it will one day be put into effect. But a scheme of that sort will need manpower. Where can we get the manpower? Are we to take men from industry, from the Fighting Services, and from other essential occupations at the present time, and use them on a large-scale plan of road development? Equally, where are we to get the constructors' materials—those modern appliances, such as bulldozers and huge cranes, and machines which shift the earth, when they are needed to make our airfields longer for the new fighters and the more speedy bombers, and things of that sort?

Where are we to get the cement? Quite a large quantity of cement and concrete is used on these new trunk roads. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, thought that it could be better used in that way than on new power plants, but I fancy that that was a slightly departmental view, coming from the Ministry of Transport, and did not take in the whole field, because I think it is most essential that we should have new power stations. We could get the extra cement needed by slowing down the defence programme, but I do not know whether one would want to do that. I am not one of those who would. We could get the cement by slowing down the housing programme; but I would sooner have a good housing programme than this vast new road scheme.

When one comes to think of it—of course, all the organisations concerned work out the most wonderful figures—to what extent is the goods traffic of this country really slowed up by stoppages on the road, apart from a stoppage which is caused by road repairs? I am here referring to the kind of stoppage which is caused because there is only a two-carriageway road instead of a four-carriageway road. In that situation the fast car is prevented from overtaking the goods lorry, but the goods lorry can still trundle along at its 20 or 30 miles per hour. The one who is impeded is the person in the car who wants to overtake the goods traffic, not the goods traffic itself which goes along at a fairly level pace. If somebody drives a little faster than usual, or drives along more quickly in a slightly higher-powered car than a person in a lower-powered car, each person going to the same place, how much sooner in fact than the person in the low-powered car does the driver of the other car get to the destination? He gets there probably five or ten minutes earlier, and one car has been driven at something like 60 or 70 miles per hour and the other at 30 or 40 miles per hour. That is all the difference that, it makes.

Except in the centre of a city such as London, where we should all like to see the traffic able to move faster, at any rate at peak hours, the only place where sometimes the real goods traffic concerned with our export trade is held up is actually at the entrance into the docks. My noble friend the Secretary of State who is going to reply appointed me Chairman of the Ports Efficiency Committee. That Committee has been inquiring into the places outside the docks which ought to be the subject of road improvements because of road traffic hold-up at those spots. Except for the case of a road project at Avonmouth, we came across no single scheme which had been held up and which would facilitate the entrance of vehicles into the docks.

Therefore, my Lords, although we should all like to see better roads in this country, and although we are all glad that there should be plans in existence so that should there be a period of unemployment we have something for the men to do—I am one of those who has always believed that it is far better to give people something to do than let them just take the "dole," or whatever you care to call the unemployment benefit—I do not believe that this is the moment at which any Government should deflect a large amount of manpower and national effort to a vast scheme of improving the roads of this country. I do not believe it was because Mr. Barnes was not a member of the Cabinet that the scheme was turned down by the late Government. I believe it was turned down because they realised that other things must have priority; and I believe that the present Government are bound to turn down this vast road scheme on exactly similar lines to-day. I do not believe that the state of our roads has that far-reaching effect on the cost of our production that people are inclined to make out. In most cases, it is still far cheaper to send goods by road than by rail. It is when we suddenly find that traders are switching large amounts of goods from road to rail, which in some cases would be a good thing, that we ought to ask: Are our roads adequate? But so long as the switch is from rail to road, as is the case to-day, we can be fairly satisfied that the permanent way of the roads is adequate for the traders' needs.

4.0 p.m.

LORD WALERAN

My Lords, I welcome this Motion, and I am very glad to have been able to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I believe that a great additional cost is placed on all our goods to-day by the wear and tear on vehicles having to stop on our inadequate road system. I cannot go along with the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, in the line which he has taken in his speech, that the overall picture makes it impossible to spend money on the roads. I believe that, as Lord Lucas said, this is not one of the things we cannot afford; it is one of the things we just cannot afford not to do. We must do this job, though, at the moment, in view of our rearmament programme, we may have to start slowly and go along rather slowly for a time. The situation in some instances is ridiculous. Mention has been made of the case of the Ashford by-pass. It is analogous to the case of a man who is given a free suit of clothes, but is not allowed to wear it because no one will put the buttons on. It is ridiculous that because the expenditure of a small amount extra has not been sanctioned that road should not be made to work.

I am not going to detain your Lordships for more than a few moments, but I want particularly to bring to your notice a lecture which was given at the Town Planning Institute in May last. It was the second Rees Jeffreys Triennia Lecture and it was entitled "The Place of a Modern Road System in the National Economy." It was an excellent lecture and I think it should be studied by all. Your Lordships can obtain copies of it from the Town Planning Institute. Should any of you experience any difficulty in so doing, I shall be very happy to help if you will write to me at the Royal Automobile Club. I will certainly do what I can to arrange for copies to be sent to all who may desire them. I believe that the lecture sets out the case very fairly. I only hope that honourable gentlemen in another place will read it also. This is not a question of Party. To my mind it is a question of national survival. Any country that has a poor surface transportation system goes down. Any country that goes ahead has a good transportation and road system. Lord Llewellin, if I may quote him again, said that the road vehicle did not go much slower because of inadequate roads; it trundled along at from 20 miles per hour to 30 miles per hour. But give these road transport vehicles proper roads, give them roads for their exclusive use, and let them travel at 60 miles an hour. If you do that, you will halve the time and halve the costs. That is all I have to say to-day, but I do submit that development of our roads is a matter which urgently needs attention, and I hope that everyone who can do so will read the lecture to which I have referred and which I think is an admirable one.

4.3 p.m.

LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU

My Lords, debates on this subject are becoming annual affairs. I feel sure that each year when various Ministries see Motions of this nature put down on the Order Paper, those concerned say: "Oh, send for File 3; the answers will be found there. They have been given year after year." I can only hope that the answer which is to be given to-day will be different from those which we have heard in former years, and that the same one will not be given to noble Lords who may move similar Motions in the next few years.

In my opinion, there are few subjects in modern times which have such a sorry history as this subject of the development of the roads of this country. Each succeeding Minister of Transport has in his turn to make a carefully prepared speech explaining that important plans for improvement of the roads and improving the conditions of road traffic have had to be pigeon-holed, mainly by order of the Treasury. Before the war, in 1938, we had an excellent Report—the Alness Report. Very few of the recommendations of that Report have been put into practice. Even now, more and more Reports are being produced and are again being pigeon-holed. I should have thought that all that would be necessary would be to go back to the Alness Report and take action on some of the recommendations made therein. One point I wish to raise particularly this afternoon is that of the amount of capital which is already tied up in half-finished road schemes. Various schemes which were started before the war are at present lying idle, and are contributing nothing towards the economy of the country. They are just tying up capital. I refer your Lordships to two particular examples—the Cromwell Road extension and the Staines by-pass. Recently over £20,000,000 has been spent on London Airport and more than 100 miles of concrete has been laid there. Yet nothing has been spent to get people more quickly from the centre of London to London Airport by the extension of the Cromwell Road, which is the main road concerned.

The Staines by-pass, which is near Heath Row, is probably the best example of the sort of thing to which I have been alluding. I have a copy of an Order which was made in 1938 on the instructions of the Ministry of Transport after a public inquiry. The Order directs that the Staines by-pass should be constructed. What has happened? Absolutely nothing. Yet the bridge over the Thames at Staines is one of the few bridges over the river in that locality. I should have thought that even if only from the defence point of view, this road, A.30, which leads to Southampton, Portsmouth and Salisbury Plain would he regarded as a vital security line in time of war. We know how Germany before the last war built her autobahnen which contributed tremendously to the German victory in France in 1940. I should like to point out to Lord Llewellin who spoke of delays in the carriage of goods for export to the docks, that Staines is on a very important road to the Southampton Docks. An Order exists; a plan has been made. If any noble Lord doubts the need for this road, he should go down to the district any week-end and he will find that it takes at least from half an hour to three quarters to get through Staines.

There is another point which has not yet been raised and upon which I should like to touch, and that is the relation of this matter to the question of defence. I should have thought that in times of modern war the essential thing was to move troops quickly from one point of the country to another. If any danger should threaten this country in the future it would be tremendously important to have a road system adequate to enable us to move troops speedily from one place to the other. We have had many debates on this subject and many Reports; I think it is about time the Treasury had a change of heart and did not look upon road improvements just as a cure for unemployment. That is not the right attitude. It is much more important than that. These matters should not be pigeon-holed until such time as there is unemployment. We all hope that there is not going to be unemployment in this country. If that should prove to be the case and there is no change of policy in regard to the roads, then the new roads will never be built.

4.9 p.m.

LORD REA

My Lords, I had not meant to intervene in this debate but I should like to touch for a moment on one aspect which has been referred to by Lord Lucas of Chilworth—that is, the northwestern development area in Cumberland. I happen to be fairly closely associated with it, and I share the honour with my noble friend, Lord Rochdale, of living in that quarter. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, "Has any of your Lordships ever tried to get there?" I assure your Lordships that I try sometimes several times a month. In getting there, most of the time spent on the journey is by main road or main rail until you come to the southern part of the Lake District. After that, it is infinitely more enjoyable. That part of the world being situated in the north-west, the natural outlook is to the south-east, and to the south-east lie the mountains and dales of the Lake District.

I hope that before Her Majesty's Government think of trying to put an arterial road through that lovely part of the world, the Lake District, they will consider, possibly, doing something for those little ports up there which had a prosperous time in the past and which would very much like further attention and more shipping traffic. I refer particularly to the ports of Workington, Maryport and Whitehaven, which I happen to know and with which the Secretary of State is well acquainted. If something can be clone in that direction, I hope it will be given consideration. If you drive a road to the north you run into the Solway Firth; if you drive it west, you run into the Irish Sea; if you drive it east, you run into the agricultural country near Carlisle. The south is the natural direction of outlet, and while I am well aware of the necessity for better road facilities. I hope that the natural beauty lying to the south of that industrial area may be protected.

4.11 p.m.

THE EARL OF LUCAN

My Lords. I must confess to a good deal of sympathy with the case put so convincingly by my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth, but I have a feeling of uneasiness. If all the noble Lords who advocate large-scale building of roads had their way, I have a suspicion that there would be very little of England left. I should like to point out that waterways, as much as roads, are capital assets and part of our industrial equipment. Your Lordships will realise that the industrial traffic needed to keep industry alive largely derives from the ports. Raw materials arrive at the ports and have to be distributed to the factories, and the finished goods have to be sent to the ports for export. The Secretary of State will be aware that in the Ministry of Transport there have been investigations into possible schemes for modernising waterways. Let me say here that I am not one of those people who advocate indiscriminate modernisation of canals. There is, however, one scheme, with which the name of Sir Osborne Mance has been associated, for modernising four routes from the four main estuaries to the Mid- lands. At 1949 prices, that scheme was estimated to cost some £25,000,000, and in view of the astronomical figures of road expenditure, I suggest that that is a scheme well worth looking at again. Do not let us forget that in a country such as France, which is not flat like the Netherlands, before the war the waterways carried something like one-third as much traffic as the whole of the French Railways, over summits higher than anything we have in this country. I suggest to the Secretary of State that he should not ignore the rôle which the waterways might play in the industrial life of the country.

4.13 p.m.

VISCOUNT HUDSON

My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, for initiating a debate of this kind. I thought he was courageous in some of the examples he gave of the inadequacy of our road system, particularly in quoting Margam and the North-East Development Area. After all, he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport in a Government of planners, and if they planned this development so badly, I do not think it reflects great credit on the Department with which he was associated at the time. I sincerely hope that, when he comes to reply, the Secretary of State will not be tempted to adopt the suggestions put forward by the noble Lord. I think conditions in this country are totally different from the conditions in many of the countries overseas with which we are asked to compare our road system. It is no good talking about what is done in the United States. Conditions there are totally different: the traffic is different, the distances are different and the whole set-up is different. The same thing is true of the Continent. Having driven in this country a great number of years, I am not convinced that there are all these advantages in huge arterial trunk roads, from the point of view of either speed or safety. There are individual occasions, especially in by-passing some of our larger towns, where clearly it would be of advantage, if it were possible to visualise at the present time the necessary expenditure. But we have got along for many years, in spite of all the difficulties. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth quoted figures to show, there has been a steady transfer from road to rail. To me, that would appear to indicate that the disadvantages under which road traffic is said to labour are not so serious as some road transport enthusiasts like to claim.

However, I rose to detain your Lordships for a moment to make a plea for economy in the maintenance of roads. I think a great many of the minor alterations which are being made in our trunk roads are a definite waste of money. I cannot speak of the whole of England but I can speak of the Great West Road, along which I have driven more often than I like to remember. It is certainly true that a number of schemes which have been carried out over the last five or six years, presumably at considerable expense, have been a waste of money. There is one stretch of road which has been widened for some miles in order to make a footpath. I am the last person to suggest that the rise in the number of road accidents is not a very serious matter in our present civilisation, but having driven up and down that stretch at all hours of the day, and most hours of the night, I assure your Lordships that I have yet to see a single foot passenger ever use that stretch of road. A mile or two further on one will find some narrow and dangerous stretches, but no money has been spent on widening them. Yet, on his comparatively wide and open stretch of road, this large expenditure has been incurred on footpaths.

In another area the road has recently been widened. It happens to be virtually a straight stretch, where there is ample room for three rows of traffic. It has been widened to carry four. Now, judging by the mysterious figures which are painted in the road, this widening is to be continued from Newbury to Hunger lord. There again, the road is practically straight. I have never been incommoded in endeavouring to get past any other vehicle and I fail to see why that particular work should be done when there are comparatively close by other stretches of road the widening of which would be of threat advantage to everybody concerned. I should like the Secretary of State to yet his Department to see who settles these matters, why some local authorities to a piece of work which to the ordinary road user seems superfluous and yet fail o do others which would seem to be of real value. I know that this is a small point, but I feel certain that if the Secre- tary of State would look at it he could either save money or divert existing expenditure into more useful channels.

4.20 p.m.

LORD ROCHDALE

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Rea, I did not intend to speak and I should not have done so, had it not been for the reference made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, to the West Cumberland Development Area. The noble Lord went out of his way, and rightly, to point out the importance of cheap transport in relation to industrial costs. He underlined what he said by mentioning, I think it was, that 70 per cent. of industrial transport went by road. I do not know whether hat figure is a correct one; the noble Lord will know better than I do. He argued from that, that roads must be regarded as an integral part of industrial investment; and that if we had poor roads the cost of production was bound to go up. By way of special illustration the noble Lord referred to some of the areas that have been developed under the dispersal of I industry scheme—a scheme approved by all Parties—and pointed out that, while £100,000,000 had been spent on new factories, very little had been spent on the roads leading to those factories. He then came to West Cumberland.

Your Lordships will remember that originally West Cumberland trade was based on iron ore, coal and steel. Presumably, shipping was a very suitable form of transport for those trades, but when those trades came on evil times, the dispersal of industry policy introduced into that area a large number of small industries for which shipping was not a convenient form of transport, and something much more intimate was required. I do not think any one would regard the train service in that district is very good. Therefore, they fell back on the road service. The question is: Is that area well served with roads or not? From what I have heard from people running industries in the area, they are very worried at the costs of their transport, especially as they are now running into a buyers' market, rather than a sellers' market. Some of these firms can be said, so to speak, to stand on their own feet—they are small firms. The question is: Can they compete with their opposite numbers who are far better located in more accessible parts of the country? Some of these firms, on the other hand, are subsidiaries or offshoots of major firms, again situated in good parts of the country. As your Lordships will know, all these large firms are to-day employed on seeing how they can streamline their costs. Is there not a danger that, when they see the high cost of some of their outlying subsidiaries, in areas like West Cumberland—costs largely contributed to by transport—they may decide to close down those subsidiaries, with the result that West Cumberland, and maybe other of the more remote development areas, will once again fall on the evil times which they suffered during the 1930s?

While I agree with other noble Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson, and the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, in that I should be the last to ask at this stage for a major road scheme in this country (this is not the time for it), I would ask my noble friend the Minister, when he replies, whether he can give us an assurance that the accessibility of these remote areas will be given serious consideration. In conclusion, I should like to say that, in my view, greater accessibility can be achieved without, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, feared, spoiling the amenities of the Lake District.

4.24 p.m.

LORD LEATHERS

My Lords, it is about eighteen months since this House debated the subject of roads, as distinct from road accidents, and I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for giving us this opportunity for what I regard as a thorough and sound discussion on this subject. The noble Lord has put forward what I regard as quite a strong case, and I am glad to say that I am able to agree with much of what he has said. Perhaps he speaks with a greater spirit of daring and less caution than he did when he sat on this Bench, but I do not grudge him that at all.

I realise, and Her Majesty's Government realise, the importance of maintaining a highway system adequate for our modern needs. We are fully aware that the roads are part of the essential capital equipment of this country—indeed, they are one of the oldest parts. We are aware that they form an essential link in the chain of industrial production and distribution on which our national prosperity depends. We are aware, too, that at the present time, when our survival as a great nation is bound up so closely with our productive efficiency, adequate roads are an absolute necessity. The comparison of a road system to the conveyer belt of industry, which has been made, is very true. We realise that, and it supports our determination to maintain the conveyor belt in good and proper order. At the same time, a highway system is something on which money can be spent almost without limit. There is hardly a road in the country which can not be made safer. I can quote the noble Lord himself on this point. In the debate in January, 1951, he observed with candour: If we could carry out all the plans we have, if we could modernise our road system and make it fit to carry the traffic as we would like to see it carried … the cost would be astronomical. Later on he said that, so far as he could see, for some years to come we cannot expect any great road improvements and, we must accept the pattern of our road system, by and large, as it is now. We will do the best we can. My Lords, that puts the whole thing in a nutshell. We cannot do all we should like to do, or all we know we ought to do. We have not nearly enough resources. All we can do, given the circumstances we are in, is to do the best we can. In other words, we are bound to hold a balance between the necessity of maintaining roads adequate for the traffic using them and the need to relate expenditure on the roads to the general economic state of our nation. Surely, no one would question that there are these two aspects of the matter. What could be said—and perhaps this is what the noble Lord really suggests—is that, having weighed up these two factors, we have struck the wrong balance; that we have allowed the need for economy, both in terms of money and of real resources, to outweigh the need for good roads. If we have fallen into this error—and I certainly do not accept that we have—we are, at least, in company. Nothing we have done so far has differed very widely from what was done by the noble Lord and his colleagues in the last Government. And, in so far as there is a difference, I think the honours are on our side.

It is worth considering in a little more detail what we mean when we talk about not being able to spend more on the roads. That is partly a way of saying, of course, that certain resources necessary for road maintenance and construction are scarce in relation to all the demands for them at this time. The most scarce resource of all, of course, at the moment is steel. Though not used in very large quantities in normal road work, it is particularly important for bridges. Just to choose one instance, many of your Lordships may know that the transporter bridge which connects Widnes and Runcorn is in a condition which calls for urgent attention and which is causing considerable anxiety. One would like to see a new high-level bridge built here to replace the present remarkable but somewhat old-fashioned and inconvenient structure. But a new bridge, even one built only to the minimum traffic standards, would require several thousands of tons of steel. That steel could be found only by taking it from other uses which at the moment are judged to have even greater priority. Then there are the steel requirements of industries ancillary to road making, for the vehicles and machinery on which road construction and maintenance depend, and so on.

The next scarce resource is labour. With our present very low level of unemployment there is no pool of idle building or civil engineering labour upon which we could draw for work on the roads. More men on road work means fewer men somewhere else. It may mean fewer men building factories or houses, or even digging coal. Nor is it just a question of manual workers. More engineers or draughtsmen planning roads means fewer working elsewhere. These are not just theoretical considerations, they are what happens in practice. Moreover, it is not only the labour working on the road itself we have to consider, but those who build the lorries and the bulldozers, the men who have to supply the materials and so on all down the line.

One could go on like this through all the range of resources that are required for road works. And, of course, that includes the cement which, after having met the needs of this country, makes a valuable export. It also includes the bitumen which has to be imported and, therefore, paid for. The real common factor in all this, the only form in which these different factors can be expressed is in terms of money. And that, of course, is why we usually discuss these things in financial terms and say that we cannot afford to spend more than a certain amount on road work. I have dwelt on this point for some time because many critics fall into the error of suggesting that because road work does not as a rule consume anything very elaborate in the way of raw materials it can go ahead without affecting the other activities of the country's economy. That is not the case. You can see the matter in the right perspective only by visualising behind the money symbols the great mass of men and materials of all sorts which can be used on road work only by diversion from elsewhere.

To turn now from these general remarks, I should like to give a few figures showing the trend of roads expenditure over the past few years. This expenditure is met from two main sources, as we have heard this afternoon—the Road Fund (in effect the Exchequer), and from the local authorities; that is, mainly from the rates. In the case of trunk roads, the whole expenditure is met from the Road Fund; on Class I roads 75 per cent. is the Fund's contribution; on Class II, 60 per cent.; and on Class III, 50 per cent. On unclassified roads the whole expenditure is met; by 1he local highway authority, with such general assistance as they may obtain through the Exchequer equalisation grant. In 1950–51, expenditure from the Road Fund was £26,000,000. In 1951–52 this was increased to £29,500,000, and in the current financial year provision is made for £33,000,000. These figures represent only the Road Fund or Exchequer contribution which, as I have said, covers the whole cost of the trunk roads and part of the cost of classified roads. If we look at the total expenditure on road maintenance and development—that is to say the contributions of local authorities, as well as from the Exchequer—the total expenditure in 1950–51 was about £50,000,000. In the current financial year it is likely to be about £67,000,000, of which about £59,000,000 will go to maintenance, and about £8,000,000 to other improvements.

It is not easy to interpret these figures in real terms over a period when costs have been rising. But the figure that I have given for 1950–51 represented, in terms of work done, only about two-thirds of the work on maintenance and resurfacing the trunk and classified roads that was normal in the years before the war. It was realised that to continue on so low a basis of maintenance would involve the risk of damaging not merely the road surface but the actual foundations of many roads, and this would be a seriously false economy. Consequently, as I have shown, the total provision for maintenance of trunk and classified roads was increased in 1951 by 28 per cent. over the year before, and again this year by a further 14 per cent. I cannot claim that this last increase is going to represent any substantial increase in the amount of work done—the increase is due to rising costs—but at least it displays a determination to hold what we have. We recognise that in the matter of road maintenance we are just about at rock bottom, and that any economy below the present level is a delusion. Our policy for the future will be to do our best to maintain the present standards as a minimum and, so far as we can, to improve on them. My Lords, let us keep this question of road maintenance in perspective. I know from my own observations that on many roads the surface is less good than one would wish. But if one looks at the complete road system, I do not think that the general standard is at all bad. By and large, surely our roads can stand comparison with any other roads in the world.

Before leaving this question of road maintenance, I should like to say a few words about unclassified roads. The previous Government considered it necessary last year to ask local highway authorities to limit their expenditure on unclassified roads to 90 per cent. of their budgeted expenditure in 1951–52. I know that the request has been unpopular with local highway authorities, and I should not like them to think that we underestimate the importance of unclassified roads, particularly from the point of view of agriculture. Nor do we pretend that by ordinary standards too much is generally being spent on them. But because we simply must spend more on the major national routes, Her Majesty's Government have felt that they have no option but to ask local authorities to do their best to continue to comply with that request.

Most of what I have been saying has related to road maintenance, since that is much the largest item of present expenditure. But it is not, of course, the whole picture. Some of your Lordships may remember that, soon after the end of the war, Mr. Barnes, my successor at the Ministry of Transport, outlined in another place an ambitious long-term programme of road development. The programme was to be divided into three main stages spread over about ten years. We have heard about that this afternoon, and it was a very good programme. In the first two years activity was to be concentrated mainly on overtaking the serious arrears of road maintenance which had accumulated during the war, and to repairing war damage. It was also hoped at that stage to deal with some of the worst black spots on the roads which were revealed by records of road accidents. The second stage, covering the next three years or so, was to catch up on the arrears of maintenance and to go on eliminating black spots, and was meant to contain a start on the major work of building new roads. It was also to include the completion of many works which had been started before the war but suspended. At this stage it was hoped also to reconstruct many bridges too weak for present day traffic. The last five years of the programme envisaged a comprehensive reconstruction of the chief national routes and the building of motorways—that is, roads reserved entirely for motor traffic.

I do not think that anyone seriously disagreed with the main principles of this programme which, as I say, was outlined in 1946. It included almost all the things that one would like to see done, and put them in a sensible order of priority. The only drawback was that it was hopelessly over-optimistic to imagine that this ambitious programme could be achieved in anything like ten years. It is easy to be wise after the event, and I do not wish to criticise the noble Lord and his colleagues for having set their sights so high. But, equally, I should not be prepared to accept criticism from the noble Lord that, after six years, so little of this programme has been turned into reality. However, it may be convenient to look at these various stages that I have mentioned, and to examine what has been done and what remains to be done.

As I said, the first stage was to overtake the large arrears of road maintenance and to repair the war damage. On the latter point, it may interest your Lordships to know that in the five years from 1946 to 1951 almost £7,000,000 was spent on repairing war damage to roads and on payments connected with special war works on the roads. During the present financial year we expect to spend about £160,000 on this restoration work, which will then be virtually completed. As for black spots, we fully appreciate the importance of dealing with them. Although in the ordinary way we have had to postpone embarking on any new road woks, Her Majesty's Government have decided, as has already been announced, to make an exception for small schemes to deal with dangerous accident spots. It is proposed that £1,500,000 should be spent in the present financial year for this purpose, of which a little over £1,000,000 will come from the Road Fund. The emphasis will be on dealing with those spots where accidents are repeatedly occurring, and where a really worth-while improvement can be made by the expenditure of a relatively small sum of money.

For example, just outside Glasgow, on the main trunk road to Stirling, there is a nasty bottleneck where sixty-six accidents have occurred in the last six years. We shall spend about £20,000 on this spot and so hope to wipe out, or certainly greatly reduce, the accident toll. Then it is intended this year to improve Piccadilly, Manchester, at a cost of £17,500, and to widen Northgate, Wakefield, for £18,000. There is also a point at Dowdes-well, on the London—Fishguard road, where several cars have run into a reservoir. We shall deal with this unpleasant trap by a £10,000 scheme. And so on. I think this is the first occasion on which the Government have set aside a special provision for improvements aimed at greater road safety. It is not as much as I would wish, and I only hope that we shall be able to repeat, or better still increase, the dose in coming years. But at least it is a start, and it shows the importance which we attach to grappling with this problem.

Another item about which we are seriously concerned is the inadequacy of many of the bridges for modern traffic. I am glad to say that some progress has been made since the war, particularly in strengthening bridges on roads where there is a flow of heavy industrial traffic—for example, over the Severn at Gloucester, over the Trent at Newark, and at Biggleswade on A.I., and so on. But there is a tremendous amount of work still to be done. On trunk roads alone, for instance, there are probably about 800 bridges which are at present unsatisfactory because of weakness, lack of sufficient headroom, or for some other reason. On Class I and II roads a comparable figure, though not an exact one, might be as much as 3,000. A few of these are being dealt with at the moment, but I cannot pretend that the present position or immediate outlook is satisfactory. One of the difficulties, as I said earlier, is that, unlike most road works, the building or even the strengthening of bridges usually requires a considerable amount of steel.

So far as major new works are concerned the programme has, of course, progressed much less well, although the amount of improvement work done since the war is by no means negligible. Dual carriageways for certain short distances have been built on the Great North Road, on the London—Glasgow trunk road and on the new Birmingham-Wolverhampton Road. But perhaps the most spectacular job put in hand since the war is the Neath by-pass scheme, on the London—Fishguard trunk road. A new road is being built to avoid the tortuous narrow stretch through Neath, and from it there is a link road to the Swansea dock area. The section under construction now is three-quarters of a mile long and has dual carriageways, cycle tracks and footpaths The road is being carried over the River Neath by a bridge which will have a central span of 300 feet, at a height of about 100 feet above the river, and approach viaducts with seventeen smaller spans. It will indeed be a fine bridge. This work is actually in progress and when finished will cost about £1,500,000.

Another item in the 1946 programme was road works to relieve traffic congestion in London and other cities. This is one of the most serious defects which face us, and one of the most difficult to deal with; and it is, perhaps, more than usually in our minds at this season of the year, when so many of the roads are inevitably under repair. Many of your Lordships will be familiar with the valuable report on London traffic congestion which was made by the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee in January last year. That Committee strongly recommended that certain schemes listed in their report should be put in hand at the earliest possible moment. At the present time the Government have not found it possible to commit themselves to embarking on, or approving in present economic circumstances, schemes for relieving traffic congestion, except for some minor schemes which can be regarded primarily as designed to prevent accidents. The enormous disturbance that demolition inevitably creates is a formidable obstacle; and, largely for that reason, the cost of any major works in London or other large cities is, again to use the noble Lord's adjective, astronomical. But that does not mean that we underrate the enormous economic loss which results from traffic congestion. I can assure your Lordships that this report has not just been shelved. It is on the desk and not in the pigeonhole, and we shall keep it before us to see whether we can get ahead with some at least of the less expensive schemes recommended by the London Committee and with similar schemes for the relief of congestion in other cities and towns.

I should add that some of the recommendations of the London Traffic Committee do not involve any expenditure at all, and we are anxious to get on with them as far and as fast as we can. For example, the Committee recommended the introduction in Central London of a system of unilateral waiting, as soon as adequate parking facilities off the streets are available. They suggested that, meanwhile, there might be some streets in which unilateral waiting could be put into force at an early date. We have, in consequence, now decided to introduce an experimental system of unilateral waiting in a number of streets in the Central and Outer London areas. This system has been successful in a number of provincial towns, but it will be the first occasion that it has been introduced in more than one street in the Metropolis. A special feature of this scheme in London will be that, with a few exceptions, the loading and unloading of vehicles on the prohibited side of the street will be absolutely banned during the hours of restriction. As I have said, the system is experimental; its working will be carefully watched, and the scheme will be subject to review in the light of experience.

Some of your Lordships may say, "We realise the difficulties about starting new works at the moment, but what are going to be the first big works to be undertaken when economic circumstances permit?" I can mention a few of the schemes which are regarded as of high importance. There are a number of trunk roads which we should wish to reconstruct as soon as we can. There are stretches on the Birmingham—Wolverhampton Road which badly need widening and, where possible, converting into dual carriageways. Similarly, the trunk road between Stafford and Stoke, which carries a great deal of heavy industrial traffic, badly needs reconstruction and widening. In particular, there are three short lengths in which the carriageway should be doubled in order to allow overtaking and prevent congestion of traffic. Much the same applies on the road between Gloucester and Chepstow, on which there are at least twelve places within a length of twenty-five miles where the road needs widening and re-aligning. Improvements are also urgently needed on some of the trunk roads leading out of London—for example, the Western Avenue at Acton, where the single carriageway ought to be widened to dual carriageways.

I have already mentioned that there are many bridges which must be strengthened or reconstructed. In addition, we should put high on any list the elimination of some of the worst level crossings. For example, there is one at Warrington in Lancashire which, at the census in 1938, was being used by 9,000 vehicles and 3,700 bicycles every day To-day, the traffic would probably be found to be even heavier. Yet the frequency of trains is such that the crossing gates are closed to road traffic for almost nine hours every day. It is not surprising that traffic waits for a long time and becomes chaotic, and extends for as mud as half a mile from the crossing.

Although plans still exist only on paper, I should mention the work which has been done in preparation for building the motorways—that is, the roads to be built under the Special Roads Act of 1949, which will be reserved exclusively for motor traffic. I think we all realised, when this Act was passed, that we should probably have to wait some years before any motorways could be built, but a good deal of the necessary planning has been done. Orders laying down the lines of the motor roads have been made for the Stevenage by-pass, the new Severn bridge and its approaches, the Newport and Port Talbot by-passes and the Worcestershite length of the proposed motorway from Birmingham to Bristol. My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport is hoping to make an order soon for the Ross spur, which will connect the Bristol—Gloucester road with the A.40, south-west of Ross. In addition to the general review of the 8,000 miles of trunk roads taken over by the Minister in 1936 and 1946, survey work is still proceeding on three big road schemes: the East-West motor road between Yorkshire and Lancashire, the London to Yorkshire motor road and the Birmingham—Lancashire—Shap road.

I fear that I have taken some time to describe these various matters but I thought that your Lordships would be interested in hearing them and, indeed, I am most anxious to impress upon your Lordships that we feel acutely the continued restrictions imposed upon us. They are very real, and I am sure are not to be overcome at any early moment; therefore, much of what we should like to do will still have to be postponed. Buy at least I want to tell your Lordships that we shall be ready to proceed as soon as we get the green light.

LORD STRABOLGI

Before he sits down, would the noble Lord say something about the Scottish Highlands?

LORD LEATHERS

No. I am sorry, but I have not the Scottish picture in my mind. However, I shall note the words uttered by the noble Lord and see what I can do about that particular aspect of the problem.

4.52 p.m.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

My Lords, I am deeply grateful to the noble Lord for what he has said. I can sum up the first part of his reply in two or three words: he has said exactly what I expected he would say. I was not disappointed, because I expect they trotted out of the Ministry of Transport pigeonhole the same brief that they trotted out for me many times. But I do not withdraw one word of what I said and which the noble Lord quoted. If we wanted to put the whole of the road system of this country right after the neglect of the last fifty years, the cost would be astronomical. All I wanted was what I thought was a moderate half-way house. That is why I took no notice of third-class or unclassified roads. The noble Lord said that we have to get this problem into perspective. I quite agree. I believe the noble Lord has too high a regard for my intelligence to think that I should stand here and advocate that we should just waste money on grandiose schemes, for no purpose.

I rest my case to Her Majesty's Government on one single point: Is it necessary that the roads of this country, the admitted conveyor lines of our industry, should be modernised to an extent that will help us to compete in the export markets for our very existence in the years to come? If these roads do not add to our industrial efficiency, I have no case. If they do add to our industrial efficiency and the lack of road facilities is going to prove a drawback, then nothing that the noble Lord can say in answer to my plea will prevent this country from having to go ahead with modernisation. I way amazed and shocked at the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin. I am sorry that the noble Lord has displayed less than his usual courtesy in making a speech and not staying to hear what I had to say about it. What did he say? He asked, had we got the material, and was it to be a road or was it to be a house? That is really fourteen-year-old schoolboy platform politics. If the position is as serious as I think it is, it is not a question whether we should have a road or a house; it is a question whether the working men of this country shall have a road and a job; because unless we succeed in the fight for the balance of payments, unless we succeed in the world markets, we shall be bankrupt. So I rest my case on that.

That is why I did not mention Scotland, third-class roads or unclassified roads. I do not want grandiose schemes. When my noble friend Lord Lucan starts talking about desecrating the beauty of England, I would ask, what is the good of the beauty of England to the people of this country if we are bankrupt and down and out? What is the good of anything cultural? It is by industry that this country must live. You cannot fill empty stomachs with beauty. Only people with full stomachs will ever appreciate the beauty of England. That is the aim we have to keep in mind. I started off by saying that every political Party is to blame for the present state of our roads. For thirty years no political Party has had clean hands in the matter, and I did not waste your Lordships' time by saying: "Yah! boo! — what did you do?" because, when I was in the Ministry, I was very much the slave of the Treasury, as is the noble Lord, Lord Leathers. Perhaps the noble Lord can find a way that neither I nor my Minister could ever find of opening the Treasury purse. It is the most tightly closed thing that I have ever met in my experience.

The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, said that he thought that the condition of our roads was all right. I hope I shall not get into trouble, but your Lordships know that the surface of our roads is very deceptive. It is like the last coat of paint on many a female face: it hides a multitude of blemishes underneath. But the noble Lord is a bachelor and so he would not know about some of the things I have just mentioned. In the Ministry of Transport we have some of the finest road engineers, and they are very concerned about the cracks underneath the thin coating of tar-macadam. The roads were never meant to carry the loads they do. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Leathers, for his reply. He will not expect me to answer that part of it which dealt with accidents. Although I told him what I was intending to say in general, other noble Lords did not have that opportunity, and the worst of a brief prepared two or three days beforehand is that one is not in a position to answer specific questions. May I ask the noble Lord whether he will be good enough to answer through the post the specific questions put to him by other noble Lords?

LORD LEATHERS

I shall be very happy to do that. I shall follow the matter up in close detail.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

I appreciate that. I am grateful that the noble Lord is here to-day. After a period of some difficulty of labour, he has produced something to-day, but what kind of a child it is I do not know. The Transport Bill has seen the light of day, but I have not read it yet. I wonder the noble Lord is here at all. I should have imagined he would be otherwise occupied. I thank him very much for his reply and can only hope that the details in the latter part of his speech will be dealt with at an earlier date than he indicated. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.