ROAD TRAFFIC STRATEGY

HL Deb 26 July 2000 vol 616 cc496-8

.—(1) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State (in respect of England) or the National Assembly for Wales (in respect of Wales), within one year of the coming into force of this Act, to prepare a strategy specifying an indicative level of road traffic for each year over the next ten years such that by the year 2010. total road traffic miles do not exceed 90 per cent. of the levels which apply on the day when this Act comes into force.

(2) In preparing the strategy the Secretary of State or National Assembly for Wales shall consult such persons as they see flit.

(3) The Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales shall as soon as is practicable after its completion publish the strategy and take such steps as are in their opinion necessary to ensure that the indicative levels are met.

(4) The Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales shall thereafter report from time to time on the progress of the strategy.

(5) The Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales may amend the strategy from time to time as they see fit to ensure that the indicative levels are met.").

The noble Baroness said: Before I go any further, I confess that I share the doubts of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, about the wisdom of starting consideration of the Bill so late in the day. We shall he dealing with some important amendments. We shall try to be brief but sometimes it will not be possible to be brief because the issues raised in the amendments are complicated.

Amendment No. 372 would introduce a new clause before Clause 253, which is the first clause in Part V of the Bill. The clause requires the Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales to prepare, within one year of the coming into force of this Act, a 10-year road safety strategy. The purpose of the strategy is a reduction of road traffic miles to 90 per cent of their current levels by the year 2010. It requires the two authorities to consult about the formation of the strategy, to take appropriate action to achieve the objectives of the strategy, to report on progress and to amend the strategy if necessary. The new clause is a refined and simplified version of the substantive clauses of the Road Traffic Reduction (National Targets) Bill which was introduced into this House in June 1998. Indeed, that Bill provided for other approaches to the problem of increasing road traffic to be adopted. This amendment is a continuation of that approach.

I shall not go into the details of the argument which I deployed two years ago. We are all aware of the cost in environmental damage, reduction of quality of life and crowded roads and streets of the rising tide of traffic. Indeed, increasing prosperity has worsened all of these effects. The CPRE has suggested that traffic could double or even treble by the year 2025. It is enough to say that, in their recently issued 10-year plan for transport, with its return to a large package of road-building, the Government have emphasised the need to reduce congestion rather than what causes it. Unfortunately, road-building, even the building of by-passes which may offer temporary relief to hard-pressed villages and towns, does absolutely nothing to reduce the number of journeys made by private car or lorry and, more particularly, the length of such journeys. Indeed, they may contribute to the opposite—more and longer journeys by road.

The new clause seeks to provide a mechanism to make reduction in the number and length of journeys by road one of the considerations which influences and informs government policy over the next 10 years. I beg to move.

Lord Brabazon of Tara

I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness said in moving the amendment. We on these Benches cannot support it. We regard the growth in traffic as being very much a consequence of the growth in the economy. We want to see good growth in the economy. To put an artificial target on it such as is proposed in the amendment would not be practical.

Lord Berkeley

What is proposed is a good idea, although I am not sure how practical it is in the short-term. It was interesting to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, thinks that the economy comes first and that traffic growth is inexorably linked to it. It is important to have a road traffic strategy even if the targets have to be reduced. Strategies are important. I am looking forward to strategies for the railways, which we have not had until now. There is no reason why there should not be a strategy for road traffic as well.

Lord Whitty

The noble Baroness has called for an absolute reduction in the national volume of traffic to 90 per cent of its current level. When we responded to the first report on the Road Traffic Reduction (National Targets) Act, we indicated, as we did again in the 10-year plan, that we wished to slow the rate of growth of traffic. In some places there may need to be an absolute reduction in the rate of traffic. Concentration on the national volume of traffic is not a good measure of the success of a transport policy; nor is it what people are worried about. People are concerned about congestion and pollution. We have therefore framed our objectives in those terms, both in our report, Tackling Congestion and Pollution, on the Road Traffic Reduction (National Targets) Act and in the 10-year plan.

That plan, in particular, sets out the outcomes that we expect to achieve. We seek to see a reduction, for example, in the contribution of road traffic to air pollution to be cut by around half, principally through cleaner fuels and vehicles but also through traffic management. Savings in carbon dioxide emissions from the transport sector will make a significant contribution towards meeting climate change targets. Similarly, on congestion, with the investment to be made in alternative forms of transport and other measures contained in the plan, we seek to reduce congestion to below current levels, in particular in our largest cities where it is most severe—even when the total volume of national traffic is rising.

We believe that we should focus on air quality, health, road safety and the levels of greenhouse gases rather than on the absolute national volume of traffic. One of the objectives as regards the inter-urban network and large urban areas contained in the 10-year plan is the target of reducing congestion to below present levels by 2010.

We have set out our strategies for carrying these forward. We believe that that will be a better way to progress, rather than to aim for a simplistic national target that relates to volume rather than outcome. We have set that out clearly at least twice in government documents. The National Assembly for Wales came to similar conclusions, which it published in February. For those reasons, I would ask the noble Baroness not to pursue the national volume targets. The targets I have outlined are already built into our national transport plans.

Baroness Thomas of Walliswood

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for his support for the general principle of setting a target for traffic reduction or, to put it another way, for the control of traffic growth. This is only one way of putting that ambition into a legislative mode but it may not even be the best way.

Our view is that it is necessary to adopt an overall approach to traffic reduction within which local authorities can relate to national aims and ambitions. I believe that merely seeking to solve congestion on the urban and inter-urban road network—which in most cases would mean simply building more space for cars to travel on—is not necessarily a way of reducing pollution, for example. It may even contribute to a slowdown in the reduction of pollution which is being achieved by other means. It is hoped that we shall see a transfer of journeys, not only those made by freight but also of passenger journeys, from the motor car to other, less polluting modes of transport.

I shall not press my amendment. I thank the noble Lord for his response and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Thomas of Walliswood moved Amendment No. 373:

Before Clause 253, insert the following new clause—

1. Inshore shipping services