§ 2.35 p.m.
§ EARL HOWEMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the reason for the series of questions to be put to motorists of a somewhat private nature; whether the answers will be considered to be private for the use of the Ministry only; and whether a Paper will eventually be produced giving a summary of the replies.]
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM)My Lords, I assume that the questions to which the noble Lord refers are those which form part of the Greater London Traffic Survey. This important survey is being sponsored by my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport and the London County Council to provide a scientific basis for planning London's roads. Because of the difficulty of stopping a 2 sample of vehicles for interview at the roadside in Central London, most of the information will be collected by means of home interviews, which are now under way and will continue for some nine months. 40,000 of the households to be interviewed have been selected from the vehicle registration records as car owners. Interviews will also be held with 10,000 households without cars.
Trained interviewers will visit each household to ask about the journeys made by all forms of transport on the previous day. Among the questions asked will be "Where each journey began and ended, the time it was made, and its purpose". This information is needed to discover the present volume and pattern of traffic in Greater London. Questions will also be asked about the number of cars and other vehicles owned by each household, the place of work of its members, their occupations, and their normal means of travel to work. This information is needed to help us estimate how the pattern of travel will change in the future. We must plan now for the roads which traffic will wish to use in ten or twenty years' time and it is therefore most important to obtain estimates of the future pattern and volume of traffic, as I am sure the noble Earl will realise.
All the information given will be treated in strict confidence and used for statistical purposes only. No names will be revealed, even to my right honourable friend or the London County Council. The information will be transferred to punch cards and tape and analysed by 3 the L.C.C.'s computer. The precise form in which the results will be published has not yet been decided, but I can assure my noble friend that no individual details will be disclosed.
§ LORD AMULREEMy Lords, can the noble Lord say what will occur if one of the people interviewed says he does not want to give the information in question?
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, what will occur is precisely nothing. It will merely mean that another piece of information will not be fed into the machine. I should like to make it quite clear that nobody is obliged to answer any of the questions that are put to him; it is entirely voluntary. But I hope that people will take the view that, since the object of the whole survey is to enable them to help themselves by providing information as to what they themselves want, they should in fact be co-operative about it.
§ LORD TAYLORMy Lords, is the noble Lord satisfied that this very large sample is really necessary? Is this being carried out by the Government Social Survey or by a private commercial firm, and could the noble Lord say how much each interview is costing, because I have never known a survey with 40,000 interviewees; it is an unparalleled size of sample, and I cannot see technically why this enormous sample is necessary.
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, I feel quite satisfied that it is necessary. There are so many factors involved which are likely to affect the future (as I put it earlier) volume and pattern of traffic, that a very wide cross-section is required. The noble Lord must realise that this takes in the whole of the Greater London area out as far as the Green Belt; it is necessary to take it that far. It is being carried out by a firm of consulting engineers having associates in America who are advising on but not supervising the operation. They have considerable experience of similar surveys in America; on the experience gained from those surveys the type of question has been based. Of course, the questions have been modified to suit circumstances 4 in London. I think that this Survey will be a most valuable component in future planning for London.
§ LORD LINDGRENMy Lords, the noble Lord in his original Answer said that the purpose of the Survey was in order to get data for the planning of the roads in future. Will it also provide data on the necessity of alternative means of transport such as the Victoria Walthamstow Tube?
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, that is a specific question to which I do not think any specific answer can be given. But I would say this: the Survey has been planned in such a way as to obtain a good deal of information which will be of great use to London Transport Executive. It is a question of planning roads not just for private motor cars but for public transport as well.
§ LORD TAYLORMy Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for the answer he gave me, which does satisfy me. I think it is true and what he said is valid, and I add my hope that the public will co-operate.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGHMy Lords, there is one thing I did not gather. What is the estimated cost of these 40,000 interviews?
§ LORD CHESHAMThe estimated cost is £425,000. The Ministry will pay two-thirds and the London County Council the remainder.
§ LORD TAYLORThat is £10 an interview. I thought the number of interviews was all right but this is £10 an interview. That is a most extraordinary cost. The Government Social Survey, I think, costs at most 15s. an interview. Is the Minister quite sure that that is right?
§ BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGERMy Lords, could the noble Lord say whether the person interviewed receives any part of this substantial sum?
§ LORD CHESHAMNo, my Lords, I cannot say that. I can only, I think, represent to my right honourable friend as rather a good idea what the noble Lady has said and add my name to the list of interviewees.
§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILLLords, could I ask the noble Lord haw the figure is arrived at? Is it so much per question and answer?
§ LORD CHESHAMNo, my Lords.
§ LORD TAYLORMy Lords, I am sorry to return to this, but I think we should press this question why the sum is so enormous. It looks as though a very large profit indeed—a staggering profit—is being made on this survey, particularly in view of the existence of the Government Social Survey, which does precisely this type of job at cost for the Government.
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, I am quite prepared to look into this matter again and to write to the noble Lord if there is anything extra to add. But I do not think that the costs of the survey are simply to be obtained by dividing the number of households, not individuals, into the estimated cost of the whole thing. There are a good many more costs than the actual costs involved in one interviewer going to one household. I do not think the noble Lord should do a simple and misleading sum of arithmetic and think that it necessarily costs £10 to send one person to one house.
§ LORD TAYLORMy Lords, it would be nice to receive the information, and I will put down a Question about it.
LORD REAMy Lords, as the noble Lord has said that information will not be treated as confidential and may be passed to other Government Departments, can he say whether it might be used in case of magistrates' courts proceedings against a motorist, when a record of this nature might be brought up?
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, I think the noble Lord must have misheard me. I said that the information would be confidential and would be used for no other than statistical purposes; names of individuals would not be revealed even to my right honourable friend or the L.C.C.