Roads Maintenance: Funding (Hansard, 8 May 2000)

§ Lord Brabazon of Tara
asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, in view of the annual Local Authority Road Maintenance Survey published on 17th April, local authorities are receiving enough money to maintain their roads and road safety.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Lord Whitty)
My Lords, the Government have reversed the cuts in maintenance expenditure made during the mid-1990s and are continuing to increase funding levels. Increases in funding take several years to be reflected in condition survey results. We are currently investigating ways to produce a more accurate estimate of maintenance need and are considering whether further funding should be made available as part of the current spending review.
Authorities fund road safety schemes from their transport single block allocations. Road safety priorities are set by authorities in their road safety strategies.
Funding levels in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are the responsibility of the devolved administrations.

§ Lord Brabazon of Tara
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer. Does he recall that in 1998 the then Transport Minister said: Maintenance of existing roads is our number one priority"? How is it then that on local authority and on national roads the Government have spent less in the past three years than did the Conservative government in the three years previous to that? Is it not also the case that expenditure on local authority roads is set to fall in 2001–02, according to figures produced by the House of Commons Library?
Is the Minister further aware that 75 per cent of local authorities believe that there is a threat to the safety of road users due to the under-funding of road maintenance?

§ Lord Whitty
My Lords, as regards the noble Lord's final point, I accept that the conditions survey indicates a problem with a number of local roads, which in certain circumstances can pose a safety problem. However, I entirely refute the rest of his question. As regards local authority roads, the previous government in their last four years cut expenditure by 7 per cent whereas this Government have increased it by 11 per cent in the past three years.
As regards national roads, we have provided more additional funding for the Highways Agency maintenance. The noble Lord might be slightly misinformed about the level of Highways Agency expenditure. That is a common fault in debates because some of the expenditure has been transferred to the GLA and that does not appear in the figures.
Apart from that, we are continuing to increase both the capital funding of maintenance through the local transport plan and the amount allocated in the SSA calculations.

§ Lord Islwyn
My Lords, as Britain is essentially a road-based economy, does the Minister agree that it is essential properly to maintain our road network?

§ Lord Whitty
My Lords, yes. However, I find myself in a cultural warp in that noble Lords are urging me to dig more holes in the roads. However, in a positive sense, the maintenance of roads is important and a proper programme is necessary for Highways Agency roads and local authority roads. Both are being addressed by the Government, but it takes time to feed through. Furthermore, we are still suffering from the cut in the mid-1990s.

§ Lord Walpole
My Lords, it is easy to blame this and the previous governments. However, does not the Minister agree that conditions last winter did more damage to the roads than can be remembered during the past 20 years? Rural roads—and I speak particularly about Norfolk where there are several thousand miles—are dehaunched, debanked and all the corners have disappeared. The amount of money required to make them passable by decent traffic in time for next winter is phenomenal.
Will the Government look further into the experiments being carried out in Norfolk on quiet lanes? For a start, I hope that many roads will be shut off and gated in order to stop heavy transport using roads that are unsuitable.

§ Lord Whitty
My Lords, according to the latest survey, rural roads are among those which have shown the worst decline in conditions. However, how the backlog is dealt with is a matter for the highways authorities concerned. We have provided additional money and are looking to the coming spending round to see whether further allocations are required. It is most important that if funds are allocated it is within a systematic timetable of maintenance, because it has 1197 previously been changed from one year to the next. The Government and a number of local authorities are taking initiatives in that respect.

§ Baroness Thomas of Walliswood
My Lords, can the Minister tell us whether the increased money which he claims has been allocated to roads—with regard to my local area I believe that that is probably the case in that the present levels provided by the Government are higher than those of the previous government—will make a real difference to the number of roads the technical life of which is now less than 20 years?

§ Lord Whitty
Yes, my Lords. If the maintenance programme is allocated according to priority in the way suggested by the UK pavement management system, which local authorities are now adopting, clearly there would be a reduction in the number of roads with the shortest apparent life. However, I suspect that the noble Baroness knows that serious technical arguments exist as to how we measure the outstanding life of roads and, therefore, the maintenance requirement.

§ Earl Attlee
My Lords, what steps is the Minister taking to measure the effect on road safety of roads in poor condition?

§ Lord Whitty
My Lords, as we spelt out in the road safety strategy which we issued a couple of months ago, among the most important contributors to road safety are the engineering and maintenance of roads. That is stressed in our latest guidance to local transport plans, and local authorities are well aware of and taking note of it. Therefore, clearly safety is mainstreamed into road design and road maintenance programmes.

§ Viscount Goschen
My Lords, for the benefit of the House, can the Minister clarify the Government's position with regard to congestion charging schemes as a means of paying for increased road maintenance, such as has been proposed, I understand, within central London?

§ Lord Whitty
My Lords, the Transport Bill, which shortly will be before your Lordships' House, will provide local authorities with powers to impose road-user charging or workplace parking levies in their areas as part of an integrated transport policy, as agreed by the Government through the transport safety plan.
So far as concerns the position of London, a parallel provision was provided in the GLA Bill passed last year. Given the preparation time and the need to make improvements in public transport, it is unlikely that many of those schemes will come into play in as short a period as three or four years. However, they represent important powers for local authorities, 25 of whom have taken them up as well as, so I understand from matters over the past couple of days, the GLA. 1198 They could make a major contribution both to rationing traffic and to financing improvements in public transport and roads.

§ Lord Roberts of Conwy
My Lords, can the Minister say what percentage of capital spending on roads by central government is spent on maintenance? Does he believe that that percentage is adequate, and should it not be constant?

§ Lord Whitty
My Lords, I shall have to write to the noble Lord with regard to total capital spending. From recollection, total road spending would account for approximately 40 per cent of the Highways Agency spending. That is the only part that central government spends directly. With regard to the amounts that we give to local authorities, the revenue grant to local authorities has increased over the past three years by 11 per cent and the capital grants provided through the local transport plans have increased by 24 per cent. Of course, I refer to England. Noting the noble Lord who asked the question, the situation in Wales is a matter for the Welsh Assembly.

§ Lord Barnett
My Lords, I note that my noble friend says that the Government are allocating funds on the basis of needs. Does that mean that they take no account of net per capita income in different parts of the country? On that basis, for example, London would receive nothing.

§ Lord Whitty
My Lords, I believe that that question raises slightly wider problems than local authority finance devolution and public finances generally. The roads formula is based on a mixture of needs and the general indicators for local authorities. We are examining the basis for the formula and for local government finance in general. However, in principle the money is allocated on the basis of a mixture of general needs and of roads requirements.