HL Deb 18 November 1959 vol 219 cc722-48

4.17 p.m.

LORD WINDLESHAM rose, first, to call Her Majesty's Government's attention to a statement made to the Press on September 30 by the managing director of the main contracting firm for the Chiswick Fly-over to the effect that it could have been built in half the time and at half the cost, and to ask whether the Government are satisfied that there is no truth in this allegation; and secondly, to ask whether the Government are satisfied that the decisions arrived at by the Ministry of Transport regarding the new Staines bridge and by-pass will result in this highly important work being completed at the earliest possible moment, and whether they consider the target date of May, 1961, to be acceptable. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I feel a little diffident in asking the Government the Questions on the Order Paper, for two reasons. One is that I am aware that almost exactly similar questions were asked on November 4 in another place and answered by the Minister. His answers, however, in my opinion, were not very satisfactory. At least, they did not satisfy me, and it is for that reason that I left my Questions on the Order Paper. I am aware that Question 'rime in another place is rather different from what it is here. There are a lot of questions that have to be answered very quickly, there is little time, and it is not suitable that questions should be answered at any great length; so I am not cavilling at all about that.

On the same day the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, in your Lordships' House made, if I may say so, a very good speech. I read every word of it, though most unfortunately I was unable to be present here on that occasion. I was particularly sorry not to be present on that day which was, of course, the date of the Motion of my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth, but I read twice through every word of that debate, and I can assure your Lordships that I have no intention of taking up time repeating many things that have been said already—and a great deal was said, as will be known by your Lordships who were present on that occasion. I shall try very hard, therefore, to confine my remarks, which are generally in amplification of my Questions, to one or two specific matters which were not dealt with. Nor do I intend to indulge in destructive criticism, which gets nobody anywhere. Anybody can do that. I shall try to make my criticism, wherever it asserts itself, constructive. I think we are all behind the Minister in this matter. He is a comparatively young man, an energetic man, who has proved himself already; and he will no doubt be most ably supported by the noble Lord who is to reply this afternoon, who is young by political standards nowadays, and has no doubt a broad back which, before he has finished, he will probably need.

May I start with one or two small matters of detail in connection with my Questions? I know that the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, replying for the Government on November 4, said that he had counted up to fifty-seven suggestions and had then given up. I can see that he must have had a very tiresome afternoon; but it is possible that the fifty-eighth suggestion would have been the very one which he might have liked best, so perhaps I may try just one or two more. My Lords, the first Question which I have put down deals with the Chiswick Flyover. In another place on November 4 the Minister said that, in view of the allegations made by Mr. Dayton, the managing director of the Alderton Construction Company, he had suggested that the whole matter be referred to arbitration. Perhaps the noble Lord could tell me later: Will this matter be referred to arbitration; when, and who is likely to be the arbiter?

The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, also said in his speech on that day that the deciding factor in the time of completion of the Chiswick Flyover was the traffic problem. Having endured this thing year in and year out, trying to get to the Airport and back, since I live no less than 325 miles from your Lordships' House, I can see exactly what he means by "the traffic problem". But, as I understand it, that is the responsibility of the Commissioner of Police—or primarily so, as there are other authorities concerned. I have a suggestion to make in that connection in a minute or two. Mr. Dayton also said in his statement to the Press that it took six months to move some stallholders from the Brentford Market. My Lords, in a project of this sort, that seems a most extraordinary thing. I know that the Ministry spokesman later said that alternaive accommodation had to be found for them. Of course, they had their rights. Why not? But surely it should not take six months. Mr. Dayton then went on to say that the property consisted of a few old orange boxes which they immediately burned. Mr. Dayton might well have been overstating the case at that point; nevertheless, six months seems an absurd time to take to find alternative accommodation for some stallholders. But perhaps that statement is incorrect.

Now here is the suggestion that I should like to make to the noble Lord—and I doubt whether it has been made before. During the war years and immediately afterwards, when we were pursuing the Germans up Italy and later into Germany, the destruction of the roads and bridges was obviously very considerable. But in no time at all the traffic began to flow again because the Royal Engineers employed means which were instantly effective. They used Bailey bridging. Bailey bridging, as your Lordships may or may not know, is a sort of grown-up Meccano set. Anybody can build a Bailey bridge: and you can make it a small one, a medium-sized one, or a big one capable of carrying very considerable weights for quite a long time. They also used a thing called Summerfelt track, or Army track. Again, for those of your Lordships who may not know, that is a sort of great roll of rabbit wire, though much stronger than that, which is unrolled and pegged down with great steel pegs; and in normal circumstances of weather, and on a fairly flat piece of ground it will carry fairly heavy traffic for quite a long time. That is how the advancing armies were kept on the move. They could not have done it otherwise.

I remember a Bailey bridge which was built in Germany just after the war, in the summer and autumn of 1945. For all I know, some of it may be there now; it was certainly there in 1948, when I left. A Bailey bridge, capable of carrying normal traffic—a thing of no beauty, my Lords, but that is another matter altogether—is a temporary expedient, and when the bridge proper has been built the Bailey bridge can be taken down and returned to the Royal Engineers' stores. It is possible that the suggestion that bridges of this sort should be used when there is an immediate bottleneck or an immediate traffic difficulty would not be well received in some quarters. I think your Lordships know what I mean, and I will not say what quarters, because it would only start comment. But it would surely be an immediate, practical thing to do. Apart from anything else, it would give the Royal Engineers extra training, which perhaps they are a little short of in this country in peace time.

My Lords, the British genius for improvisation which emerges in war time—to the great discomforture of our foes, I might say—seems to stop dead in peace time. The moment that peace breaks out, as the saying is, nobody can do anything. A new idea or a new man is automatically suspect. It is said, "No, he is a dangerous man. It is much better to do what we have always done". But not so in war time. I look upon this as very nearly a national emergency. It is possible—and this, I think, is no exaggeration—that within a year or two, unless most drastic steps are taken, circulation in this country can come very near to a standstill; and if that is not a national emergency, I really do not know what is.

Before I leave the question of the Chiswick Flyover, I would refer to one small matter, which seems to me to be a matter of taste and which I would not have mentioned had I not been asked to do so by one or two people, including one or two noble Lords. People have resented the fact that a project of this sort, costing £6 million of public money and taking a very long time to build, when it eventually was completed, was not opened by some prominent British citizen. One can think of a considerable number of people who could have opened it. I may be wrong, but my information is that the then Minister of Transport was asked to do it, but, that, as it was getting near Election time, and he was busy electioneering, he declined, with the result that it was opened by an American film actress (against whom I have nothing) who is not exactly famous but who, I suppose, can at least be described as prominent. In any case, the occasion seems to have received a certain amount of adverse publicity; not because of the lady herself, but because, frankly, it seemed to make this project ridiculous in a sort of way. And I must say that there seemed to be a lack of taste on somebody's part. It is possible that the Construction Company had the final word: that may well he so, in which case I am handing the noble Lord who is to reply an "easy one." But I think that, even under those conditions, the Ministry could have prevailed upon those responsible to have the Flyover opened by somebody of a little more standing, and a British citizen at that.

LORD DERWENT

May I interrupt the noble Lord one second before he leaves the Chiswick Flyover, because I am going to return to this question? Where would he have put the Bailey bridges?

LORD WENDLESHAM

I had no intention of putting a Bailey bridge anywhere near the Chiswick Flyover, where it would have been quite unsuitable. The Summerfelt track, on the other hand, could well have been used around the site. Instead of clogging up side roads with traffic, which had to be kept moving, with mountains of equipment and rubble thrown about all over the place, it would have been possible, for a matter of 50 or 100 yards, to make a little diversion using the Summerfelt track. My remarks on the Bailey bridges were general, but I think there are many places where they could be used.

My Lords, I have no intention of indulging in a lot of argument or of taking up a lot of your Lordships' time on the subject of engineering, or on the æsthetic aspects of bridge-building, about which I know nothing, or about as much as anybody else, which is very little: because all these points, in my view, obscure the main issues—which is the question of time and, to a lesser extent, of cost. The late Minister, Mr. Watkinson, in a speech last summer, used the following words: We welcome new ideas, now techniques and new ways of getting the maximum mount of construction at a minimum cost. Sound words, with which we shall all agree. But the result is that we have a 20-year-old design adopted for the new Bell Weir Bridge, which will be the first over the Thames for twenty years. Many noble Lords will be familiar with the heavy built-up area around Windsor and Maidenhead. There is a six-mile stretch between Windsor Bridge and Maidenhead Bridge where there is no means of crossing the river. We are now confronted with a 20-year-old design. I have no intention of getting involved with it, because I think it is better to leave these matters to the experts; but it seems to me odd, to say the least of it, that it is necessary to adopt, even though it may be adapted, a design made as long ago as that.

As regards the time of construction, the estimated target time is 21 months. I wonder whether this time allows for possible flooding in winter. Those are the only points of detail, and I would now move on to the major pleas which I want to make to the noble Lord. I know that he has heard them before, said in different ways, but I believe that the situation is so urgent and important that they cannot be said too often. There may be a tendency, now that the Election is over and the speeches have been made on the gracious Speech, that things will go back to what they were before, and civil servants will say with relief, "Well said." I think we must try to avoid that, whatever happens.

First, I should like to ask whether the noble Lord will not agree that the whole machinery is too cumbersome. There are 1,056 different road authorities—county councils, borough councils and urban district councils, not to mention the Ministry itself—all operating at the same time, and, one supposes, some operating a good deal better than others. On November 4 the noble Lord said in this House that the present process of acquiring land is being considered with a view to doing anything desirable to speed it up. It seems to me that "desirable" is the operative word, and in this context I should think anything, or nearly anything, is desirable.

The noble Lord went on to say [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 219 (No. 7), col. 414]: We are quite prepared to bulldoze our way through the many physical difficulties, but we cannot bulldoze our way through the rights of the citizen. I do not advocate for a moment that motorways should be built in the way Hitler built them, with slave labour; and in the way Mussolini (although admittedly he did not use slave labour) got his autostradi built quickly, by means that we should hesitate to adopt here. But motorways are built in the United States at a remarkable rate, and not across a desert island; and I do not think that the United States citizens are any less interested in their rights than the citizens in this country. I can assure noble Lords who do not know that part of the world that if you leave New York to go out to Long Island for a week-end to play golf and go back the next weekend, from one week to the other the countryside is barely recognisable. Road building goes on at such a speed that frequently you think you are on the wrong road or have lost your way. And I do not believe that the rights of the American citizen are being pushed aside as they were in Germany.

I think that it is an easy thing to hide behind "the rights of the citizen". Of course, we all want our rights, but during the war it was considered unpatriotic to harp on that theme. When the military arrived to put up some installation on your tennis court, you said, "Come on then," and helped them. It was the right thing to do. And this is an emergency, too. Perhaps that is something of an exaggeration, but I suggest that that attitude of mind would be popular. Some people would not like it, but some people do not like any kind of change. Generally speaking, I think that the Government would make more headway by being ruthless in this matter than by exaggerating this question of the rights of citizens and going through all the democratic processes of sub-committees and ad hoc committees and all those other bodies in the jungle of officialdom which clog the works and which, however hard the noble Lord and the Minister may try, will probably beat them in the end.

In the course of the debate on November 4, the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, referred (col. 370) to: … public bickering over obsolete plans which the Ministry of Transport have produced from their pigeon holes. We know what the noble Lord means. He always puts his views shortly and to the point. And I think that he "had something" there, if I may use that expression. Both the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, and the noble Lord who moved the Motion suggested a Director of Road Construction. There might well be something in that idea, provided that there was the right plan. He would have to be a very strong-minded individual. And in this connection, I would advocate no extra staff, or at any rate a very small additional staff, since big staffs produce complications. Will the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, on behalf of the Minister, undertake to take immediate drastic action? Whether it is to the most junior clerk in the Ministry or to a senior civil servant within a year of retiring, with a pension, and perhaps a knighthood, to the county of Surrey, will he undertake to say, "This is an emergency. This is what we have decided to do. If you cannot go our speed, you are out."

I have a suggestion to make; it is one that has been made before, but I took the trouble of consulting one or two construction companies on their reactions to it. Between the months of May and September, broadly speaking, why should it not be possible to work two shifts a day instead of one—in other words, sixteen hours against eight, or eighty hours against forty, or whatever is the week agreed with the unions? For the last hour or two of the second shift in spring and autumn the men might have to work under are lamps, but why not? There seems to be no difficulty in that at all. There are parts of the country where there are still pockets of unemployment, where I think that such a suggestion would be well received.

En passant, I should like to tell your Lordships that when I was in Manchuria two years ago I went over several steel mills and cable factories. The Chinese have a great problem on their hands, and they are solving it in their own way, by working three shifts all round the clock. The men on the third shift get no overtime, but they get extra transport facilities, extra rations and things like that; and actually there are more volunteers for that shift than for the others. Obviously, three shifts would produce certain difficulties in this country. For one thing, it would be so revolutionary that I do not think that anybody would comprehend it. But working a second shift would not be an impossibility. Reduced to a matter of simple arithmetic, it presumably would halve the time of construction. If we are agreed that time is everything, then millions of pounds are being lost to industry daily by the present system. I myself trade in a small way, and I know the appalling frustration experienced. When you hire or buy materials, the story is always the same: difficulties over delivery date, so and so. "Oh, that seems very long." "Ah, well, we cannot get it". If it is not roads, it is something else. There is always difficulty in circulating goods.

So perhaps the Government, or the noble Lord on behalf of the Government, will accept that in all this there are four basic "musts". None of them is new, but I should like to repeat them once more. First, the machinery for the overall control to produce a nation-wide road system must be set up at once—not after prolonged negotiations; that may be too late. This, of course, involves new powers for the acquisition plan, the ordering of the necessary demolitions and so on. The present powers would appear to be totally inadequate for this purpose, and were never designed to deal with an emergency of this sort. Secondly, if the Minister finds obstruction and inefficiency, or even lethargy, at any level, he must deal with it. Thirdly, the money must be made available. Here again, there is the old cry: "Look what it is going to cost." Even the biggest sum that has ever been put forward in this connection would not run a war for more than about a week. So the sums are not as astronomical as some people try to make out.

Finally, will he employ the best engineering grades? I have no axe to grind in this matter; I do not know a single man employed in road construction. But one begins to suspect that possibly there are people in the country who could be used but who are not being used. Perhaps they do not belong to (and the noble Lord will know what I mean) the "Old Boys' Union"—one does not know. It has been well said—I cannot remember by whom or when—that the eventual collapse of Great Britain will come on the day on which it is "Muggins's turn". I very much hope that where this tremendous problem is concerned it will never be "Muggins's turn".

4.42 p.m.

VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN

My Lords, I do not know whether I am the only Peer, but as one who has earned his living for the last thirty years as a contractor's agent and a contractor's engineer I must be in a very small minority among Peers. I must state that I have no interest now in the engineering world, with the sole exception that I am an Associate of the Institute of Structural Engineers; but that is a loose thing, and I am not a consulting engineer in any shape or form. It so happens that I was trained by the eminent firm of Dorman Long, who built the Sydney Harbour Bridge and countless other bridges all over the world. The next firm I worked for was Holloway Brothers. I may say that all the bridges built over the Thames in this century, with the exception of two, have been built by those two firms. So one has had a little experience in these matters.

I am not going into this controversy in any detail. Personally, I think it is a great pity that it happened, and certainly that it happened in the way it did. My opinion is that it is not up to the contractor to criticise the engineer or the customer he is working for, at any rate not in public: he can do it privately, but not in public. Still, it has happened. Unfortunately it has had a great deal of publicity, and the distressing aspect of it, as I think, is that it could be inferred that British engineers are not up to scratch and that we are behind the times. I think a contractor is in a fairly good position to judge that. During his working life he carries out work, not for one consulting engineer but probably for upwards of one hundred consulting engineers on different jobs and in a great many parts of the world. I myself have worked in countries other than this. That does give you an overall picture, and, I think, the possibility of coming to a judgment based on some facts: it may not necessarily be the right judgment. At any rate, it gives you a chance of weighing the thing up more than if you had not had any experience. I want to say quite categorically, as my judgment on that point, that when British consulting engineers are given a free hand—and I emphasise the words "a free hand"—they cannot be touched in the world to-day. I have some figures of which I I may quote about six which I think support that contention.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

My Lords, the noble Viscount did say, "when they are given a free hand".

VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN

I will carry on with that; do not worry. I must apologise to the noble Lord the Minister who is to reply if he considers that I have strayed too far from the Question, but I feel that a little should be said on account of the unfortunate effect of this publicity. Therefore, I hope he will bear with me; and I will be as quick as I can in what I have to say now. I think the real question (not the Question on the Order Paper: the Answer to that one is, of course, "Yes" and "Yes" if it is not "Yes" and "Yes", nothing on earth will get any other Answer out of the noble Lord) is not whether the Government are satisfied, but whether the country is satisfied that their money, not the Government's money, paid in taxes, is being spent to the best advantage considering all points of view. That is the crux of the question. If it is too wide, I apologise but unless the noble Lord prays that I stop, I am going on.

I think this aspect should be carefully reviewed and thought over by the Government, in conjunction with their engineers and with the institutions of the two main engineering groups, possibly the architects, and certainly—and in saying this maybe I am prejudiced—the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors: they are the boys who do the work. Frequently, if you are going to save money, the time you can save it—and it has been done with the greatest goodwill in the past, in my experience—is on the happy occasions when the consulting engineer is able to call in the contractor in the early stages of the job and the temporary works and the method of construction is tied up with the design, which is not the contractor's pigeon, but the consulting engineer's job. When those two can be welded together to the mutual benefit of everybody, the most happy results come about. That can be done without any transgression of professional etiquette or anything of that sort. I have had experience of that happening both with British consulting engineers and in South Africa, too. I do feel that real thought should be given to that point by the Government. I know that there are all sorts of difficulties in the way of these things, but difficulties can sometimes be overcome by discussion, and if all the people who know something about it are consulted sufficiently, then something might come out of it.

With the greatest respect, I think the suggestion that the Minister of Transport should take a trip to the Continent with an unspecified gang of young men and show them what is happening in the engineering world should be resorted to only as an absolute last resort. The reason why I say that is this: that every large project on the Continent, in America and all over the world is fully reported in the engineering Press; papers are read before all the learned societies and it is almost a matter of going to the bookstall and buying it and reading it. The idea that you are going to cast a slur on British engineers by saying, "You are not up to date anyway", and taking them on a Cook's tour round Europe to show them what they ought to do, and then tie both hands behind their backs, to me just does not make good sense. I am sorry to be so forthright on that matter, but I think it is a thing that should be done only as a last resort.

If your Lordships would allow me, I should like to quote the figures showing the state of British engineering. My source of information is the Import-Export Group, and this is the value of contracts carried out and completed in the fiscal year, 1956–57, by British contractors overseas. In that year it was £102 million worth of work. In 1957–58, when one might believe that we are getting so out-of-date that the figures would fall off, it is £114 million worth of work. In 1958–59, when the decay should have set in, £120 million worth of work was carried out by British contractors overseas.

Now the other side of the fence: the value of design work carried out overseas by members of the Association of Consulting Engineers in this country. To be different, they quote their figures—and they take a lot of finding, because they do not like advertising—to January 1. To January 1, 1956, £500 million worth of work was obtained in competition with the whole world; to January 1, 1957, £550 million worth of work; and to January 1, 1958, £630 million worth of work—a gradual rise. Unfortunately, owing to the printers' strike the 1959 figures are not yet published, but I know that they are comparable with 1958. I do not think you can "laugh that one off". Although consulting engineers are not at liberty to advertise, I think that that is an achievement which is worth noticing.

What can one suggest as a possible constructive suggestion? When a project is carried out on behalf of the Government, there are normally three sets of engineers, all of them competent men. There are the Government's engineers in a Government Department who, by the very nature of their employment, are in the least favourable position to be in daily contact with modern innovations, just because they happen to be, through no fault of their own, in a Government Department. That is a fact. They are subject to all sorts of frustrations, their ideas are pigeon-holed, and so on. My heart bleeds for them. Then there is the consulting engineer. He is responsible for the stability and safety of the structure. And finally, there is the contractor who has to do the job to the satisfaction of everybody.

There may well be a difficulty in this, but careful thought, I think, should be given to it. So far as I know, when Her Majesty's Government put out a major job they have innumerable permits to get and all the things we have heard about, and dozens of people have a say in the matter. A little bit has to be given to this chap, and a little bit to that chap. Her Majesty's Government then finally produce a line design of a bridge they want. They take that line design to a consulting engineer and say, "This is the bridge we want"—and here is the point—"Now you do the detailed design and produce this bridge." When Her Majesty's Government are good customers and require, say, a Rolls-Royce, I think it is asking too much of any consulting engineer to expect him to turn round and say: "I do not think you want a Rolls-Royce really; you would be much better with a Ford 10." That may be stretching the matter a little, but it is in that direction.

I cannot help feeling that the Ministry engineers would be only too thankful if it were possible for them to go to a consulting engineer and say, "We require a bridge over such and such a river, in such and such a place. It must carry two lanes of traffic, and both lanes must be 36 ft. wide. It must be up to Ministry of Transport loading. We want the most economic bridge you can design, or one that can be erected with the maximum speed. Get on with it. Submit your design to us." Whether it would be possible to ask two or three consulting engineers to do the same thing, I do not know, but I cannot help feeling that if that were possible—and that could be arrived at only by consultations between all the interested parties—and negotiations carried out with very good will indeed, spectacular results would come from it.

4.56 p.m.

LORD DERWENT

My Lords, I want to take up only two or three points. First of all, I should like to support my noble friend when he talks about consulting engineers and their abilities. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, did not mean to give the impression—though he tended to do so—that our leading consulting engineers were not being employed and that, if they were, they were perhaps not so good as they might be. I am sure he did not mean that, but it rather sounded like it. If anyone has any doubt, he has only to ask abroad about the capabilities of our consulting engineers. I think my noble friend overstressed a little his case about consulting engineers of calibre being told exactly what to do. Considerable consultations go on between the engineering staff (I am not talking about the ministerial level) of the Ministry and the consulting engineers. By and large, I should have thought the consulting engineers got 75 per cent. of what they wanted. I agree that sometimes it may be a pity that they do not get 100 per cent.; but I do not think they are quite so bullied as the noble Lord made out.

I rose to speak on one point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, when he talked about a statement by the Minister that the rights of the public must be upheld. He went on to talk about slave labour and the German or Italian methods of doing things before the war, and so on. With all respect, that is not what the Minister meant. What he meant was that if you are going to take somebody's land away you must give them a right to argue. I think he meant that, and nothing else. But of course, whether somebody is obstructive or not depends on one's point of view. If a man who owns the land says, "You are offering me too little", he may be said to be obstructing. It depends upon which side of the bargain you are.

But my Lords, with respect, I do not believe that, in itself, this looking after the rights of the public is what holds up matters. I believe that, if you rode roughshod over everyone, the obstruction might be so fierce that you would get nothing built at all. In my view, what holds things up is the machinery. The machinery is out of date. It is not entirely the fault of the machinery, it is also the fault of qualified staff, and I would refer particularly to the legal side. The machinery of using the legal side of acquisition, conveyancing, is, I think, much too slow. I have gone into this question fairly carefully and I still do not know quite what the answer is. I know that the Treasury Solicitor is as worried about it as everyone else. Although much of that work could be decentralised, there seems to be a certain resistance on the part of country solicitors to handle additional work without additional conveyancing clerks. It is the machinery that is holding things up.

What is holding them up more than anything else is the quite inadequate sums granted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, even on the new basis, for constructing a modern roadway system which is already years out of date and is not yet catching up with the increase of vehicles. If the Minister of Transport were promised more money ahead—he has quite a bit now—if he were promised about three times the amount, we might in some of our lifetimes have a more adequate road system. The sums coming forward at the present time for new road construction, and to the local authorities for maintenance of roads, are completely inadequate for the problem with which we are faced. I do not believe that it is the preservation of the rights of the public that is holding up progress: it is the machinery for dealing with those rights, and, above all, as I say, lack of money.

5.3 p.m.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

My Lords, the few observations I intend to make are not going to be centred upon the rights or wrongs of the Chiswick Flyover. As I said in a speech I made in your Lordships' House on November 4 (which the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, must have read from his remarks this afternoon), thank goodness! it is at least carrying traffic. I also do not intend to enter into the technicalities, as the noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, did, and I am grateful to him because I thought his was a most useful contribution to the knowledge of noble Lords.

I want to centre my few remarks on the enemy of it all, which is delay. I am quite willing to trust the Minister. The Minister in this House, the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, made a very forthright speech when he replied to the debate on my Motion on November 4. I think he will do it. But he has a major task, because the system that has grown up in this country for the road construction of this country is so clogged up it can hardly move itself. It is not a question of shortage of staff—I would tell the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, that quite frankly. It is not a shortage of engineers; it is not a shortage of conveyancing staff over the country. In the Treasury, yes, if they have to do an inordinate amount of work at the same time. But the Treasury Solicitor, who gave evidence before the Select Committee, said Our staff is adequate if you will give us time; but if you want us to do five years' work in a month we cannot do it. If all the legal departments of all the county councils and all the local authorities who have to convey all the land wanted for every road that is built, except trunk roads, are harnessed, there is plenty of staff.

One of the troubles with the Ministry of Transport—and I speak from experience—is that what they do not know is not knowledge. That is the trouble. This thing has got too confined. First-class engineers in the employ of county councils have precisely the same qualifications as those in Berkeley Square; but they have to submit every detail. That is one reason. Another is the lack of planning. The noble Lord will remember (I think it was before he was appointed, or about the same time), the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, making a speech in your Lordships' House—which I thought was excellent—on the Address to the Throne. What did he say? He said that all the £50 million worth of equipment and machinery that had been marshalled to build that M.1 had to be dispersed because the plans were not ready for the Yorkshire extension of the M.1 to be carried on. I questioned whether the noble Earl was making an authoritative statement. I have since found out that it was true. What a colossal waste of time and of the taxpayers' money! That is what I want the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, to underline—the need to get these things moving by logical planning, as industry has to do. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, that the whole fault lies with the Treasury. It is impossible to build the road system this country wants by handing out a few coppers every 12 months. I made that point very strongly on November 4.

When I hear a Department say, "Of course the real cause of delay is that we must defend and look after the rights of the common citizen", cold shivers run down my spine, because my experience has been that more sins of omission and commission have taken place behind that screen than any other. Of course, we, as a democratic Parliament, are not going to stand for the rights of the citizen being trampled on. No Department has to tell us that. What we want is the job got on with, not left; and that is what is happening. All these huge concerns that built up what is, I suppose, the finest piece of organisation this country has ever known, to build one of the finest roads this country has ever known, now have to disperse it because of a lack of foresight and a lack of planning. I know that that all occurred before the noble Lord arrived in office, and before the present Minister was there. Let us at least learn from these omissions and ensure that they do not happen in the future.

I have one other point to make, and it is this. I am worried about some of the aspects of the progress of the new Staines bridge. I am also worried about the activities of the anonymous individual who crops up every now and again in every Government Department known as the "departmental spokesman," who appears to say anything that comes into his mind that will hide or cloak something or give some reason for delay. It happened over the Staines bridge about consultation with the Royal Fine Art Commission. The Fine Art Commission were not consulted. The Minister, to his credit, contradicted that, and made an explanation. I thought in his reply in the other place this was characteristic of the Minister. He ended by saying this: I am sorry that there should have been any misunderstanding, and steps have been taken to avoid any such misunderstandings in the future. Having some knowledge of the Minister, I accept that statement. Then yesterday, in your Lordships' House, in the questions and answers on Piccadilly Circus, I thought I again detected some sign of the Government's hiding behind the petticoats, if they wear them, of the Fine Art Commission. The Minister put all the responsibility for what some of your Lordships thought was a monstrosity on the Fine Art Commission: they had approved it. Then, when he was cross-examined, there was some qualification.

May I ask the Government this question? If in future they think it necessary to obtain the advice of the Fine Art Commission, will they publish precisely what the Fine Art Commission say? Then we shall know. I think I am right in saying that the Commission are appointed by the Government and paid for out of Treasury funds; so to some degree they should be responsible to Parliament—at least, Parliament should have details of their advice. I think that will perhaps curtail the activities of these anonymous departmental spokesmen who make some of these excuses. I come to this, my Lords. I am quite willing to leave this matter in the hands of the Minister. I do not mind whether he goes to Germany or where he goes—he is not going to Germany to cast any slight upon the engineers or contractors of this country. We all know their quality. I am hoping that within twelve months we shall see a radical change in the machinery for getting on with improving our road system. If we do not, then I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, will have what I promised him some time ago—a rather rough road.

5.12 p.m.

LORD CHESHAM

My Lords, it seems to me, having heard every word that has been spoken this afternoon, that, having had Part 2 of the original debate on Lord Lucas of Chilworth's Motion a week ago concerning roads in Norfolk, we now have come to Part 3 of that debate on the Chiswick Flyover—on the dual pegs, perhaps, of the Chiswick Flyover and the Staines bridge. I do not think your Lordships will expect me, on the whole, to take up every point that has been raised. It must be remembered that I came here to give Answers to the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham on the Question which he has put down on the Order Paper, and in a moment or two I propose to do that. I should not like anyone to think that I am ignoring these other subjects, but if I content myself with but one or two brief remarks I hope that that will be understood.

The suggestion that the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham made about Bailey bridges and Summerfelt tracks, is, of course, a good one. I am sure he will understand me when I say that it is not a new one. In fact we hold stocks of both commodities for the purpose. I am quite prepared to assure him that, like all good ideas, it will go into the melting pot (if that is the right expression) for consideration. I agree, too, that that idea was not one which was among the 105 suggestions—I analysed them fairly carefully—that were put forward by various noble Lords in the course of the original debate. Also, I do not know that the comparison in regard to the peace-time and the war-time speed for getting on with things is entirely fair, because in war time there are no statutory obligations to be gone into: you just go on, and you bulldoze over everybody's rights—and over everybody as well, if necessary. I do not really think that that is a proper comparison.

The noble Lord also made a point about double-shift working and getting on with the job generally. I do not think that that sort of thing is dictated from the top. The way to do it is to find the minimum time to do the job—to do it as quickly as possible. You then leave to the contractor how he does it. If he wants to work all round the clock he works all round the clock, and if he does not, then he takes that course. You have to use such time as would make it a reasonable engineering proposition. I should like to add, for instance in regard to the motorways, that Laing's did in fact work round the clock when possible. Where something has gone wrong, such as flooding, or there is a subsidence, of course you cannot do it; but where it is possible it is normally done. I should like the noble Lord to know that I have a newspaper cutting here. I shall not read it all out, but it says, in effect, that officials from the Bonn Ministry of Transport are coming over here to find out how we built the motorway in nineteen months, because in Germany it would have taken three years. That is a most significant fact, and one which ought not to be overlooked in this connection.

My Lords, as far as the Fine Art Commission is concerned I have not much to say, except that I should hate the noble Lord to think that Her Majesty's Government sheltered behind the skirts of the Fine Art Commission. Surely, they have been set up as an arbiter, as far as one can set up an arbiter at all in matters of this kind; and, having been set up, presumably they should be made full use of. Apart from one other matter to which I am coming, I propose to deal with the subject of these constructions. The noble Lords, Lord Windlesham and Lord Lucas of Chilworth, both made a point, not for the first time, about urgency, and urgency in various respects.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

And it will not be the last!

LORD CHESHAM

It will not be the last—I have no doubt that it will not. No doubt nobody will ever work fast enough to suit the critics. I have said this before, but I say it again: at least we can try. What both noble Lords have said is not news to me. My right honourable friend and I, and the rest of us, need no urging at the present time. I cannot undertake on behalf of my right honourable friend what I think the noble Lord asked, that drastic action will be taken in about a fortnight, but what I can tell the noble Lord is that his suggestion is very much on the same sort of lines as our minds are running. I hope that that will be some small consolation if he cannot have his undertaking.

I think I might now come on to the subject of the Question. As your Lordships know, there has been a lot of controversy over the building of the Chiswick Flyover, which is now of course built, and the Bell Weir Bridge—I will call it that for the moment—on the Staines by-pass, which is in the course of construction. As the noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, told us, there has been an unprecedented spate of publicity on the part of the Ministry's contractors for the flyover, which has included press conferences, television interviews, numerous statements and opinions from here and there, some qualified, some not. I do not know whether Miss Mansfield's opinion has been taken into account. I understand that she thought it was jolly good when she was invited there by the contractors, who took the opening ceremony into their own hands when the Minister was unable to go. There is one slight misapprehension that I want to correct. The cost of the contract price was just on £820,000 and not £6 million as stated by the noble Lord. I do not know where that figure came from. I just mention that in passing.

My Lords, my right honourable friend welcomes informed criticism. He has no desire to prolong this controversy. But I think that in view of the concern that has been expressed—possibly it has not been expressed quite so much this afternoon as I had expected; other things seem to have taken its place—I should take this opportunity to give your Lordships a little more information about it. As was said, the answer to the first question of the noble Lord is, Yes. The contract had to be carried out under the great handicap of somehow keeping 40,000 vehicles a day flowing through that junction. So far as anyone could see, there was no other way for traffic to go. This meant that there had to be very careful planning of each stage of the work and there was little latitude for adjusting the programme, either backwards or forwards. The need to deal with this traffic problem throughout the period of construction was fully explained to the Alderton Construction Company when they were awarded the contract. So was the fact that the work would have to be very carefully scheduled to avoid interfering with the traffic.

I agree that it would have been possible to have built that flyover cheaper and quicker if the traffic could have been totally ignored; of course it would—if we could have had the biggest traffic jam in West London, lasting about two years. Had we been prepared to put up with that, the work could have been done more cheaply and more quickly. But I do not believe that the thousands of people who use this junction every day would have put up with that, or regarded it as any form of good planning. In any case, the saving of time and cost which would have been achieved would have been far less than has been suggested by the contractors.

It was not only the traffic that constituted a problem, however, for there were difficulties with the foundations. Those difficulties were not quite so obvious as that of the traffic, and for the most part they were due to the proximity of an existing 48 in. diameter sewer 20 ft. below ground level, as well as other services, including a water main, in the neighbourhood of the actual bridge foundations. This meant that there had to be very careful work on the piles which supported the foundations, and that kind of work cannot be skimped or rushed. Had there been any damage to the sewer or water mains there could have been very serious consequences for a great many people.

The work was eventually completed almost to schedule, but that was achieved only after very considerable efforts on the part of everybody concerned. In particular, a very heavy strain was thrown on the consulting engineer, Mr. Harry Brampton, in supervising the contract on behalf of the Ministry. I know, for instance, that he had difficulty in keeping the contractors to the agreed schedule and that he had constantly to exert very great pressure to do this, but that even so, they were at one time some five months behind schedule in the erection of the main bridge. This, I think, contrasts oddly with the statement that the work could have been done in half the time.

While on the subject of time, there have been allegations about obstruction from the beginning. I believe the words used were: Every possible obstruction from the very early days. So far as the Ministry are concerned, I can tell your Lordships that, in fact, the reverse is the case. However, the contractors have made certain allegations about causes of delay to their work, and on the basis of these they have submitted substantial claims to the Ministry. These claims are being referred to arbitration. My right honourable friend has already suggested to the contractors that the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers be asked to nominate an arbitrator, and I understand that the contractors have agreed to this. Consequently, for the moment, it is impossible for me to say who will be the arbitrator or when arbitration will take place.

In these circumstances, it would be inappropriate for me to say any more about these allegations of delay and, in fact, I regard myself as being inhibited from doing so; and I am afraid that that applies to two-thirds of the points raised by the noble Lord. I do not want to become technical or enter into discussion of that kind on the design of the Flyover but I should like to make two quick points which have a bearing on the cost. The bridge itself is one of the most advanced pre-stressed pre-cast concrete designs in the world. The approach ramps, which have come in for a certain amount of criticism, I know, with their brick-faced concrete retaining walls, showed appreciable economies in construction in comparison with the reinforced concrete viaduct structures which would be the logical alternative. While showing considerable economies they avoided the use of steel, which was relatively scarce at the time the design was prepared. I hope I have now said enough to show that the statement that the Flyover and its approaches could be built in half the time and at half the cost cannot be justified. For my part, I would reject it completely.

If we may come now to the bridge at Bell Weir, on the Staines By-pass, the answer to the question which has been set for me is again Yes, but perhaps I should explain a little of the background in relation to the design, which is important. The design was prepared in 1939 by the late Mr. H. W. Fitzsimons as consulting engineer and the late Sir Edward Lutyens as consulting architect. When the project was revived, in 1957, the possibility of adopting an alternative design was considered, but in view of the historic importance of Runnymede and the amount of work that Sir Edwin Lutyens had already done there, it was decided to retain the elevation of the original design.

I should like to make this very clear because it is very important: it was the elevation that was retained. We are building no bridges to twenty-year old designs. The elevation was retained and the engineering structure was completely redesigned to modern standards by the consulting engineers, C. W. Glover & Partners, who had taken over, Mr. Fitzsimons having died. Your Lordships will probably know that the Alderton Construction Company submitted an alternative outline scheme for the bridge which they claimed could be built much more quickly and at much less cost. This was carefully considered both by the consulting engineer and by the Department's own bridge experts. In the view of both of them the outline scheme was unsound and unsatisfactory and therefore was completely unacceptable.

A noble Lord used some words about my right honourable friend's predecessor, saying that he welcomed new ideas and new people. This alternative design did not represent a new idea. There was nothing new about it. The principle has been in use for many years, so that there was nothing particularly new about it. I stick to the words used by the Minister at the time: that there is a welcome ready for new ideas and new people. But the new ideas and the new people have to be good. There is not going to be a welcome for them just because they are new. They have to be good as well as new; but there is nothing in the word "new" to prohibit them from receiving a welcome.

The bridge at Bell Weir (at the moment we are considering the possibility of calling it Runnymede Bridge, which seems rather attractive) is only part of the Staines by-pass and it is quite wrong to consider it in isolation. On the Middlesex side there are some two miles of new dual carriageway to be constructed, almost all on embankment, and the work includes five other bridges. On the other side there is a small section to be completed in Surrey. The estimate of the engineers was that the whole project would take twenty-four months to complete, and this was accepted as the contract period for the road works. My right honourable friend is satisfied that as two summers would be required for the work, this was the minimum that could reasonably be allowed for the scheme. The completion date of the scheme is November, 1961.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

My Lords, is that for the whole scheme?

LORD CHESHAM

That is for the whole scheme. The successful tenderer for the Bell Weir (or Runnymede) Bridge offered to complete the work in twenty-one months. This was very acceptable, because there are tremendous advantages in having the bridge ready a little time ahead of the road works and my right honourable friend is convinced that all the contractors concerned will do their best to beat the completion dates if they can.

I hope, my Lords, that the noble Lord will feel that I have given him a proper Answer to his Questions. If he does I should then like to add two general points, because the Staines bridge and the Chiswick Flyover are not our only bridges. As part of the road programme we have a very large number of bridges designed both by independent consulting engineers and by county surveyors.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

My Lords, is it now part of Ministry policy that bridges shall be built before the roads linking them? Because that will save a lot of time right over the country.

LORD CHESHAM

My Lords, it is difficult for me to affirm yea or nay that that is or is not a policy. But certainly it is, I would agree, desirable to do so, and we should naturally endeavour to do so wherever possible.

There are a lot of bridges being built and designed by consulting engineers and by county surveyors. I do not know whether any of your Lordships saw the exhibition of models, perspectives and photographs which were in the upper waiting hall in another place last week. They showed quite a lot of what we are doing at present. I am sorry that I was unable to arrange to bring the whole collection to your Lordships' House, but I arranged for a perspective of the Staines bridge to be on view in the Prince's Chamber. If any of your Lordships would like to see pictures of the other bridges (they are quite interesting) the exhibition is at the moment at the Institution of Civil Engineers, which is in Great George Street and only two or three minutes' walk from your Lordships' House. I can thoroughly recommend it.

We are not complacent about this bridge business. I hope I have made that clear. We recognise that we have much to learn. My noble friend Lord Stonehaven attacked my right honourable friend's views about how to go about building bridges, and he himself said that his words were forthright. I thought, if I may say so with respect, that they were rather ridiculous. The idea of the Minister wandering about with a gang of apprentices over Europe, pointing to bridges and saying, "That is what you must build", is of course perfectly ludicrous. What he proposes to do—I recognise and share in his admiration for British civil engineers and designers—is to make sure that our bridge building policy takes good account of everything worth using in the world, not just what we do ourselves, and to pool the information and know-how here and from elsewhere, which will apply to technical designs as it will also to methods of obtaining them.

VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN

My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? He has not got what I said quite straight. First of all, I did not say apprentices; I said young men. I do not know at what age a man is "young", but I did not mean apprentices. The other point is this. It is not only the British engineering standards and achievements that are available without going abroad; it is achievements all over the world. So my observations were not quite so bad as the noble Lord has said.

LORD CHESHAM

My Lords, my noble friend gave me the impression of overdrawing a picture of the Minister engaged on a rather ludicrous task. He is going to see bridges and methods and also a great many other things. Perhaps if I could go on I would say this. He does not propose to take young men a few stages beyond their apprenticeship. He proposes to take independent, leading British designers, chosen from a panel which has been submitted to him by the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers—that has already been done—and until he has done that and made up his mind on what should be done, until he has been and then made his inspections, he does not want to commit himself to any particular method. What noble Lords have said, including my noble friend Viscount Stonehaven, will of course be borne in mind. When the Minister has assembled the evidence he will make up his mind as to the best methods. He will consider the different methods—open competition or any other method spoken about—which can be used. That is what he proposes to do.

House adjourned at twenty-three minutes before six o'clock.