THE EXPANDED ROADS PROGRAMME

HL Deb 26 July 1955 vol 193 cc987-1003

3.13 p.m.

EARL HOWE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that the expanded roads programme will be sufficient to meet the future needs of traffic, particularly in view of the experience gained throughout the country during the railway strike; whether a return can be issued showing the progress so far made with the expanded roads programme and the progress likely to be made during the next three years; whether the programme as a whole is being dealt with as a matter of urgency; and whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to bring forward additional proposals in view of the huge increase of traffic which will take place during the next three years; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, when a Member of your Lordships' House ventures to introduce a Motion relating to roads, we are sometimes told: "They want racing tracks for speed-crazy motorists." In order to try to lay that ghost, I should like to recite three facts. One is that for every ton of goods that goes by rail, three tons go by road; secondly, only one-tenth of the goods arriving, at the London Docks for export arrive by rail; thirdly, in the case of Liverpool and Birkenhead 79 per cent. of all the tonnage of goods carried goes by road. Having made those few remarks, I am sure your Lordships will realise the seriousness of the Motion which I venture to submit to your Lordships this afternoon.

It was on February 2 that the Minister of Transport introduced the expanded roads programme. In introducing it he used these words [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 536, col. 1097]: …the work done in the early years … must necessarily be mainly in connection with the improvement of existing routes. Here we are now, five months later, and I want to ask the noble Lord who is going to reply to this debate—I hope your Lordships will forgive me for reciting a list of extreme focal points of traffic—what steps have been taken to deal with the congestion at Newark, on A.1, at Stamford on A.1, and I would also include Stevenage, Biggleswade and Grantham. What has happened with regard to Markyate, on A.5, and St. Albans, on A.5? We are told that there are to be by-passes, ring roads and so on, but no sort of idea has been given to any of us when these extremely necessary things will be completed. To show your Lordships how serious the problem is I may say this. Whilst any of your Lordships who motored up the A.5, say, between three and four o'clock in the morning might expect to find the road fairly free of traffic, in fact he would find the traffic going through such places as Markyate even heavier at that time of the day than during the midday hours, because of the enormous quantities of goods, cars and so on for export coming by road from the Midlands.

Then, again, with regard to A.48, what is happening about Newnham, Newport and Chepstow? The importance of Newnham, Newport and Chepstow, for those who do not already know it, is this. The Minister has talked, and Ministers have talked, quite a lot about the Ross spur as a substitute for the Severn Bridge—it is a road which they very much want. But the Ross spur will decant its traffic, if it ever gets going, into A.48, where there are these extreme focal points at which traffic is completely hung up. And what, for example, has happened with regard to Maidstone and the Ashford bypass on the A.20? Maidstone is a point of extreme concentration for traffic going in that direction. The Ashford by-pass is largely but not fully complete: there the end of it sits, without a sod being turned and no work at all apparently being done. The Minister has said, I believe, that he was going to authorise a fly-over junction at that point. I hope that he does; but I would urge him: for heaven's sake, get on with the work instead of merely putting it in a programme!

Then what is happening with regard to Reigate? That has not featured in any of the Minister's utterances. Reigate is on the No. 2—some may call it the No. 1—main road to Brighton. The road goes through a tunnel, and there is extreme concentration at the level-crossing there. Horsham is another extreme focal point. Then I come to Staines, on the A.30. There must be many of your Lordships who endeavour, at holiday and other times, to get through Staines. I met a friend the other day who told me that it had taken him one and a half hours to get through Staines. That is not an unusual experience, but I have not seen any particular allusion to Staines in these problems and the Minister's programme. If you go a little further down A.30, you come to Sunningdale, with its level-crossing. There again, on occasion, tremendous hold-ups occur. What is happening at Ingatestone, on A.12? What is happening at Lancaster, on A.6, or at Worcester, on A.44? At all of these points traffic is so congested that, on occasion, it piles up literally for miles. The expanded roads programme does not give us much hope with regard to much of this congestion.

On June 9, the Rime Minister, speaking in another place, said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 542 (No. 3), Col. 65]: Traffic is multiplying at a most alarming rate. I am told that there are likely to be another 1½ million vehicles on our roads in the course of the next three years. He went on to say: There has not been any major road reconstruction plan at all over the last sixteen years. Further on he said (Col. 66): In all this we have very much in mind the need to reduce accidents which is at least as important as the reed for new roads for industry. I will come back to that aspect of the matter in a moment. Then he went on to say: We have also tried to get to grips with the special problem of the congestion of London and other great cities. One would like to ask the Prime Minister what really has been done. We have heard about the Cromwell Road extension, and that work on that extension has actually started, but the whole of the original plan has been bogged down somewhere in Hammersmith because of interference with amenities. I understand that the viaduct which was an essential portion of the Cromwell Road extension is now out. Are we really tackling the question of London traffic?

Turning to Paris, which I am sure your Lordships know as well as I do, and probably better, they have gone in for a large system of tunnels. Instead of one main road being allowed to cross another, they tunnel under. A great deal of work of that kind has been going on all along the banks of the Seine, where they are tunnelling under the bridges and decanting traffic on to the north or south banks. Cannot the Minister or the Government give us some little hope with regard to a similar plan for London? There are points where tunnels could be cut in order to relieve the congestion of London traffic. Take another town—Stockholm. Stockholm has gone in for a big fly-over junction system which has, I believe, proved to be of immense benefit to the city. Then in Rotterdam, in Holland, they have gone in for a big sunken road scheme to get the through-traffic through the city without interfering with the city's traffic.

I pass from that matter. The Prime Minister went on to say (Col. 66): Work on a number of these schemes, in-eluding the London ones, will actually begin quite soon. I put a mark against those words, because they really gave a little hope that we had not to wait for three to ten years before something was done. If only the Prime Minister or somebody could tell us which schemes have been started or are about to be started ! Above all, could we be told when they will be completed? No Minister in the Government has given us any particular forecast about that. Speaking on July 6, the Minister of Transport said (OFFICIAL REPORT (Commons), Vol. 543, No. 22, Col. 1100): In my statement on February 2 I named twenty-seven large schemes. I have a list of them here; it is the expanded roads scheme. He went on to say that he hoped to authorise them this year; that actual work will have started on at least a quarter of the schemes by the end of September, and that work on practically all the remainder will start before the end of the financial year. All that is magnificent, so far as it goes; but Ministers always stop short—they do not give us any idea of the estimated date of completion, and it is that information that believe the country is really anxious to have.

On July 5 the Minister of Transport held a Press conference at which he indicated that about 340 miles of motorways should be built within ten years. Within ten years! When one looks back at the history of what various Governments have proposed in order to deal with road questions, one feels that the matter is pretty hopeless. In 1946, the Government of the day brought in a great scheme involving 800 miles of road—it may even have been more than that. It was a great scheme, and if only it had been carried out it would have done much to solve our present-day problems. Unfortunately, it was abandoned in 1947. Here we have our present Minister of Transport expecting to build some 340 miles of motorways within ten years.

None of these plans was additional to the expanded roads scheme. I should like to give your Lordships a criterion by which to judge how long it takes, or how long it can take, to produce these motorways. They were to comprise six lanes of traffic, with three lanes in each direction. It was a grand scheme. In the United States they have a motorway between New York and Baltimore—118 miles of road, with six lanes and seventeen clover-leaf junctions on the way. That was completed in two years. The same sort of road, I agree slightly longer (340 miles of road as against 118 miles), should, if one estimated it at twice the time, take four years to build. That would sound fairly hopeful and reasonable. It is almost three years ago to the day since Lord Leathers, then Secretary of State for the Co-ordination of Transport, Fuel and Power, rose in this House and said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 117 col. 965]: I want to tell your Lordships that we shall be ready to proceed as soon as we get the green light. That was on July 9. 1952. We are now in July, 1955, and I suppose the Minister has not yet given the green light. But if he is ready to proceed, or if it is true that the Ministry are ready to proceed, what is stopping them?

I come now to present delays to traffic. Most of your Lordships find yourselves on the roads at holiday times. at fine week-ends and the like, or at any rate listen to the wireless reports wherein the motor organisations tell us that there arc blocks on this, that or the other road, three to five miles long. One knows from one's own experience that that is all too true. The Roads Improvement Association has told us that delays to traffic are costing the country £250 million a year. Naturally, I cannot vouch for that statement, or for its accuracy, but I have reason to believe that it is not far wrong. If it is true that delays to traffic are costing £250 million a year, I submit that that is a direct charge on the cost of living. The cost of living is rapidly becoming, if it has not a long time ago become, one of the most serious problems with which we are faced to-day. Surely we ought to do something that will begin to bring down the cost of living. It has been estimated that motorways would save at least 12½ per cent. of the general cost of delay. Surely that is worth while. Practically everything that is used, everything we wear, everything we consume in our daily lives, at some stage goes on to the roads. If it is delayed in transit on the roads the cost will have to be borne by all of us: we shall have to pay a little more. Surely we ought to be able to do something about that.

Then we come to the question of accidents. I often wonder whether we are in earnest when we talk about accidents on the highway. Do we really know what we say? I have often heard in this House expressions of universal horror, and one reads them in the Press as well as hearing them in debates. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents estimate that accidents on the highway cost this country something like £157 million in 1954. Wherever roads have been improved an immediate reduction in the number of accidents has been found possible. Road accidents can be very effectively dealt with by road engineering. I have with me a booklet, published by an organisation which I will not advertise, which is complete with pictures, and any noble Lord who wishes may gladly see it. This booklet shows what has been done in the matter of road accidents and how, by the improvement of various black spots, road intersections and other examples of bad road design, accident figures have been reduced by 100 per cent. We may therefore look forward without doubt to a reduction of accidents if we improve our roads as the Minister of Transport said, in February, that he was going to do.

The reason for the reduction in accident rates is that road improvements can remove those features which cause errors of judgment. I could quote figures from American experience, but I will give noble Lords an example of what can he done by road improvements in this country. In 1932 a new road, A.580, was built between Liverpool and Manchester. There is an old road, A.57, which went through Warrington. In the three years ended March, 1951, there were, on the old road, 741 casualties. Vehicles pass along that road at the rate of 4,000 a day. In the same period on the new road there were 492 casualties, yet there were 7,000 vehicles using that road every day. There was, in fact, a 75 per cent. reduction in accidents. That is the sort of improvement for which we may hope if we improve our roads and get on with the work instead of just talking.

Today there are over 6 million vehicles of all kinds on the roads of this country. The Road Research Board, which cannot be said to be a biased or motoring organisation, has said that the number will double in eight years; there will be 12 million vehicles on our roads eight years from now. The Minister of Transport has also stated that the number will increase by 1½ million in three years. Our roads are pitifully inadequate today. Does not all this underline the absolute and crying necessity, from the point of view of industry and our national life, for a real sense of urgency to be imparted into the Government's proposals to deal with this problem? I often wonder to what extent Ministers themselves actually appreciate the urgency of this problem from their personal experience. I wonder how many drive their own cars or depend upon the Government pool for their motor transport. They must surely realise that the position is becoming completely intolerable.

Recently the Minister of Transport held a Press conference He referred to the expanded roads programme but gave no idea that the problem was being tackled as a matter of real urgency. Various references were made to proposals and the Minister gave estimates of when authorisation might take place, but there was no estimated date of completion for any particular proposal. The Minister did not say whether tenders had been invited, or negotiations for acquisition of land had begun. I believe that they have, but that is only hearsay, for there has been no Government announcement to tell us the real position; and I hope that the noble Earl who is going to reply will be able to give us some real information this afternoon. The Minister left in the minds of those who heard him at that Press conference, or who afterwards read the proceedings in the Press, the impression that most of these schemes were at the drawing-board stage and might so remain almost indefinitely.

Her Majesty's Government must realise: that Governments have long shilly-shallied over this problem. One moment it has been said, "Yes, we must have roads," and the next moment, "The national situation being what it is, we cannot have roads." People are now naturally a little suspicious. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will not overlook the fact that the next Election will be coming within four or five years, perhaps depending on the activities of noble Lords opposite and their Party. If nothing effective has been done by the time the next Election takes place, having regard to what has been said by the Prime Minister and by members of Her Majesty's Government, there will be some 8 million thoroughly exasperated and frustrated people who will want to know why—and they may have votes.

I want to try to be constructive. I may be quite wrong, and. no doubt, if I am noble Lords will he able to show me where, but I believe that until we have an authority which can provide guaranteed continuity of finance we shall never get anywhere with the roads programme. We shall not get the development which alone can effect a real reduction in traffic congestion and thereby make its contribution to a reduction in accidents and in the cost of living. I want to submit, as I have done in the past. that we should have a national highways authority in this country, with power to raise money and control finance up to an authorised limit, and that that authority should deal only with new road construction and should be free from annual financial interference, as in the case of electricity, coal, gas, railways and aviation. That step has been taken in regard to all those services, so why not do so with roads? We do not expect our Minister of Transport to go down and examine all the details of Sir Miles Thomas's expenditure on B.O.A.C. or Sit Brian Robertson's proposals with regard to the railways. No doubt the Minister has these matters generally before him, but one does not expect him to be immediately responsible for everything. The same applies to gas and electricity. Surely the Minister would himself he better off were he to keep all these vast undertakings only under his general supervision, rather than be, as he is at the moment in the case of the roads, immediately and actually responsible for them.

Such a national highways authority should be able to negotiate the actual planning and expenditure with the various local authorities concerned. From what I happen to know through discussions with county surveyors and similar people, I believe it would be an enormous gain if there could be some real continuity, for local authorities could then look forward to steady programmes proceeding at an ordered pace through the years, rather than in fits and starts. I believe that they would then be in a much better position to organise their contribution to the general scheme of road improvements and that it would result in the making of roads as soon as possible and would give everybody concerned a chance to make up for lost time.

I believe that this national road authority should be given power to raise money as and when required. The ultimate requirement, I consider, in view of such information as I have been able to get hold of, is probably £750 million spread over ten years. Now if the money were raised at 4 per cent., repayable in thirty years as required, the servicing of that loan at the peak would need only £45 million a year. That is less than the Minister actually proposes to spend at the present time. It would enable a real programme to be worked out and started on without going along uneconomic paths or moving in fits and starts. The Government are now getting £400 million a year from motor taxation in all its forms, so they really cannot say that the proposal which I have put forward is an extravagant one. They cannot say that £45 million a year is an extravagant charge on revenue of £400 million a year.

Others may say: "That is all very well but you cannot provide the wherewithal." Sir George Burt, President of the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors, has told us that the civil engineering industry can cope with 800 miles of new roads without undue strain. He said that on February 4 of this year. Sir Trustram Eve has stated that the cement makers can guarantee the cement. About 70,000 tons of steel would be required to complete the programme, and this is not an extravagant demand on a production of 15 million or more tons a year. The British Road Tar Association say that the necessary tar and bitumen would be available. This being so, it does not seem that it is beyond possibility for a national highways authority to be endowed with the necessary authority and power for the funds to be raised, and for the work to be got on with, and, moreover, got on with it at once. Practically every other country in the world outside this country is hard at work making roads adequate for the needs of its traffic, and has been doing so for years past. This is really a remarkable situation. Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Holland, Malta, Portugal, Sweden, Western Germany, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Persia, Turkey and many others are all hard at work making roads for the traffic in their countries. Look at Austria: that is a country which has only just been freed from occupation. Surely we are in no worse position than that of Austria—at least, I cannot understand it if we are. The same applies with regard to Belgium, Holland and all those small countries which I have mentioned.

In conclusion, I submit to your Lordships that "Stop" and "Go" tactics will not help the nation now. We are "up against it," and unless we adopt new policies and new methods in connection with our roads we shall find that such complete road stagnation is just round the corner as will bring vividly to mind our experiences in the General Strike—and even worse than that, in the words of Lord Leathers, give the nation a steady green light, and not one that flickers. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

3.45 p.m.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in a most interesting speech—if he will permit me to say so—focused our attention on three major points. Does the Government's existing road programme measure up to the nation's requirements? Is even the road programme already announced under way with sufficient force? Can we hope for any substantial benefit or increased acceleration while our roads are under the authority of the Ministry of Transport and under the supervision, as regards finance, of the Treasury? In a debate that we had in your Lordships' House last week, when, for the last time, we buried the Road Fund and erected its tombstone, I asked the noble Lord who was replying for the Government how the Government proposed to finance the road programme in the future, when, at the behest of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it could be brought to an end in any one year by his refusing—if I may be allowed to use the vernacular—to "sweeten the kitty" once every twelve months. Lord Hawke said that of course the road programme in the future will be financed in exactly the same way as it has been financed in the past. The noble Lord could not quite grasp the fact that that is what we are so afraid of; and that has been the prime reason for much of what the noble Earl has stressed so much to-day.

I want to start my contribution to this debate by asking le noble Earl, the Paymaster General, 'ho is going to reply—and, unless he belies his title, he is the one person who should be able to delve into this matter—this question: Do I already see a dark cloud on the horizon? Do I already see in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement a recurrence of history? The east wind which I predicted is just becoming a gentle breeze. Domestic spending is to be curtailed. Is Government spending to be curtailed? And will the first Government project to come under the Butler "axe" be the Government's road plan? I think we are entitled to know that; I think the nation is entitled to know that. Is the Boyd-Carpenter road plan going the same way as the Barnes road plan went, as the Chamberlain road plan went, and as every road plan in the history of this country has gone? I ask the noble Earl, in terms, to tell your Lordships whether the poor wretched unborn child is going to be strangled even before it sees the light of day. That is the first question I want to ask.

I agree with Lord Howe that, judged by any measure, the present programme does not measure up to the nation's requirements. I do not suppose the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, will attempt to defend its inadequacy; I expect his defence will be the Treasury defence—shortage of money. But surely no-one would suggest that an expenditure of £147 million in three to four years can cope with the chaotic conditions on the roads of this country. And on what basis is it suggested that in this country, which has led the way in all forms of engineering ever since this nation was born, it will take ten years to build 340 miles of these new motorways? I cannot understand it. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, quoted the statement from the Minister's Press conference that we are going to have real roads—340 miles of them—in ten years' time; and that the Minister hopes to authorise the first in three years' time. If it were not desperately serious, that would be funny. It was not meant to be funny. The Minister is a serious man.

What is wrong? I intend to give my view of what is wrong. Perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Howe, will imagine that I am arguing, obliquely, his case for a national authority for roads. I am not going to mention that, because I understand that other noble Lords are: to develop that theme. The only thing I would say is that, from being a bitter opponent of the idea, I am now almost on the verge of being a convert to it, on the basis that things just could not be worse. I wonder whether there is sufficient dynamic force behind this scheme and whether we are going about it in the right way. I have here the Minister's Press conference report and I see that we are to have a 35-mile section of road with six fly-over junctions. This is the first time the fly-over has come into the nomenclature of road building in this country. We are to have dual-carriageways of three traffic lines on each side. To us this idea is something really revolutionary; but in America it died a natural death three or four years ago. They now have four lines, and even six lines of traffic going each way. The New Jersey turnpike and the New York Thruway have six lines of traffic—final is, twelve carriageways. And these two roads, which are far longer than 340 miles, were completed in one-third of the time it is going to take us to build our 340 miles of road. What has America got that we have not? Will the noble Earl tell me? Perhaps he will say that it is money: I am afraid that that is going to be the answer. I am not going to admit that it is constructional brains.

I believe that our road programme always has been, and while the present set-up remains always will be, tied up in a mass of red tape and contradictory officialdom. I believe that that is the root cause of the trouble. I am going to cite a case to illustrate precisely what I mean. In the £147 million programme there is a stretch of about four miles of road on the A.40 known as the Oxford Islip turn. Everybody who knows the A.40 knows that that is a very dangerous piece of road. A three-line road there was first suggested by the Oxfordshire County Council thirty years ago. After it was suggested, arguments and delays ensued. The Ministry said that a two-track road was sufficient for any main road in this country. Then the war came. Immediately after the war, the plan for rebuilding this road was resuscitated. The county council pressed for it and they were asked to put forward a revised plan. The Oxfordshire County Council did put forward a revised plan, and for six months they did not even get a reply. Then the argument started between the experts. The years rolled by and at last that road is included in this plan.

The road starts at the Oxford city boundary and the real trouble lies in the omission of the 771 yards from the city boundary to the by-pass which was built before the war. Under this plan we are to have a four-carriageway road funnel-ling into 771 yards of two-track road. Why cannot the 771 yards be widened at the same time? The argument goes that this is because the roads come under two highway authorities, the County and City of Oxford also that one scheme is going to cost £250,000 and the other a few thousand pounds, and therefore they are two different schemes. The quarter of a million pounds scheme will be finished in twelve months: the 771 yards scheme is not scheduled to be finished for four years. A start has been made on the paper work of the 771 yards scheme. I understand that the city authority have now received a letter from the Ministry of Transport asking that if they receive an invitation to act as the Ministry's agents when this scheme is authorized, will they please answer. "Yes" or "No". I ask the noble Earl to use his endeavours to complete this section of road while the contractors are there on the other section.

I cite only one example, but I could multiply it hundreds of times all over the country. If one studies this road plan, one sees where sections of road are started from nowhere and end nowhere. There are hundreds of four-line sections coming out of two-line sections and running into two-line sections. If a plumber fitted the plumbing of a house like that, I wonder what the result would be. There must be something wrong when there are all these circumlocutions and paper work and delays. I could keep your Lordships here for hours giving you examples. There are county authorities with first-class road engineers who have designed bridges and submitted plans to the Ministry of Transport, only to be told that they must have not a concrete bridge but a steel one. Heaven knows why! The result is a two-year delay while the steel is obtained and before it is delivered. Right in the middle of any one of these schemes we may have another east wind and the Chancellor of the Exchequer may say that the Government cannot go on with the scheme anyhow.

I think that what is wrong is that we are trying to plan the roads of this country with a horse-and-cart mentality. The Government are prone to point the finger of scorn at industry because of the delays in delivery that are cutting us out of the export markets. Have noble Lords ever heard of the delivery date of 340 miles of road ten years hence? If anybody in a commercial concern did a thing like that, he would get "the sack." That is what I think is wrong, and that is why I support what the noble Earl, Lord Howe, has said. First of all, the plan is totally inadequate. Before this £147 million road scheme is completed we shall be so swamped with transport that the scheme will be out of date before some of the plans are even authorised. Bearing in mind the rate at which vehicles are coming on the roads, and also the present congestion on the roads, we must do something better.

I want to make some comment, and I do net think it is necessary to offer any apology for so doing, upon what I consider to be one of the most important matters we have to consider in this country in connection with construction. It is a continuation to the Question which the noble Earl so kindly answered this afternoon and it has excited leader page articles and leading articles in the Press. I refer to the road congestion which forms upon our one trunk road through the centre of this country, the A.34, when it gets to Oxford. The noble Earl stated this afternoon that authority has been given for the commencement of the next section of the Oxford ring road. So now we have a ring road for about three-quarters of an hour if we look upon Oxford as a clock. We have the main east-west entering Headington by-pass; we have the southern by-pass—one of those comic things built years ago which started nowhere and finished nowhere; and we now have the Botley-Wolvercote by-pass promised—at least, we have signed a paper. That will complete about three-quarters of the circle. I want to press the noble Earl that in the national interest—and he was kind enough to pay me the compliment that I have no personal interest in this—what is known as the Sandford link, a scheme that has been accepted by the Ministry, and also what is known as the Little-more-Headington-Cowley section should be completed, thereby completing the circle. Until that is done we shall never solve the Oxford traffic problem.

It is at about this time of the year, when the Birmingham holiday week starts and all the West Midlands close down and make one dash for the sea, that chaos reigns. If your Lordships tried to get into Oxford this afternoon you would see about 400 coaches lined up along the Woodstock and Banbury roads, and you would be unable to get anywhere near the centre of Oxford. This matter has been the subject of controversy between the University authorities, the City authorities and the Oxford Preservation Trust—all estimable bodies; but if all three had set out with malice to bedevil this problem, the) could not have succeeded better. The outcome is that there is a serious suggestion that the biggest act of vandalism has a chance—I hope only a faint chance—of success: the proposal that in some spurious effort to solve the problem of the main road congestion, two roads shall be driven, one through Christ Church Meadow and the other through the Parks at Oxford. Never have I heard a more insane proposal to solve a traffic problem. It will not get near it.

I am stressing this point because I want to end by asking the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, whether he will represent to the Government that this is a national and an international problem—the city of Oxford is one of the most priceless heritages this country has—and it should be taken out of a road programme and dealt with entirely separately. As one who has some knowledge of transportation and has studied the road question for years, I say that you will never be able to solve the problem of Oxford traffic, you will not preserve the University amenities of Oxford, or its historical associations, until you have diverted the colossal through-traffic which has to go through Oxford from the North and the Midlands to the South because there is no other road. If some of the wild-cat schemes put forward by people with axes to grind and vested interests to safeguard could be forgotten and it could be left to road experts to handle the problem, I am sure we should see better results.

I want to ask the noble Earl a specific question. Into this turmoil of discussion comes the Minister of Housing and Local Government. After four years of consideration of a development plan put forward by the city authorities, he writes to them declining to pass the City of Oxford development plan until they have put forward proposals for relief roads. Have we another Minister of Transport? Have we another road authority? I say this with respect, but is not the Minister of Housing here usurping the functions of the Minister of Transport? What will happen if the Minister of Transport says he does not agree? Do we go on wrangling and talking for another ten years? No, my Lords. This is a matter for the Government to decide. I hope they will decide to go on with the completion of this ring road by the building of the Sandford link and the building of the Headington Cowley section, so that it will not be necessary for any traffic from north, south, cast or west to go through the City of Oxford.

Also perhaps the city authorities will learn the lesson that the London authorities learned during the railway strike—the value of putting a complete prohibition on all waiting in certain streets between specified hours. What they should do, I believe, is to put a complete prohibition on waiting in about 100 to 200 yards of every road leading to Carfax, the High, Corn Market and Queen Street. In that prohibition I would include bicycles. I do not know whether your Lordships realise but if a bicycle is put against a kerb it takes four feet of that roadway. If you watch a bus driver passing a pedal cycle up against the kerb you will see that he will pull out four feet to miss it. Here, in this celebrated "High," the greatest street in the world without any question at all—with one part of it, as I think, sufficiently wide for six traffic lanes, and at its narrowest having room for four lanes, you will find that in the 200 yards where there could be four lanes, tradesmen's vehicles are allowed to stand on both sides of the road from morning to night. There are bus stops, bus crew change-over stops; and anybody who likes to prop himself up against the kerb can do so. So what happens? Sometimes there is not even one carriageway left there, and the jam starts. Prohibition on waiting is the solution. I hope that the Government—for in the end it will be the Government who must decide—will never allow the proposed vandalism of cutting through Christ Church meadow. Oxford University parks are the most beautiful spot and have memories for many thousands of people. Oxford is a modern Rome, and I sincerely hope that the Minister of Transport will not cast himself for the role of a modern Nero, and be content just to play a tune on a fiddle.