§ Mr. Cyril D. Townsendasked the Minister of Transport if he will summarise the formal cuts made in the English motorway and trunk road construction budget from 1976–77 to date; and why the actual outturn in each year differed from the planned budget.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeThe following reductions in the plans announced in relevant public expenditure White Papers have been imposed as part of general economic measures since 1976–77:
- (i) £10 million—at 1976 survey prices—reduction in July 1976 to the programme for 1976–77 published in Cmnd. 6393 (approximately equal to £15 million at 1979 Survey Prices);
- (ii) £8 million—at 1979 survey prices—reduction in June 1979 to the programme published in Cmnd. 7439.
Spending has been below the planned level for a number of reasons. These include difficulties in recovering from the moratorium imposed as part of the 1976 reductions; adverse weather conditions; 75W unexpected delays in starting some major schemes; and reductions below earlier estimates for some scheme in progress. Some of the unused resources initially allocated to the construction programme have been switched to other parts of both the central and the local transport programmes.
§ Mr. Cyril D. Townsendasked the Minister of Transport (1) if any calculation has been made of the economic and environmental benefits forgone by the unplanned delays to English trunk road construction schemes which contributed to the underspending of the construction budget in 1976–77 and 1978–79;
(2) what is the average cost of a trunk road village bypass; and how many such bypasses could have been built with the funds unspent in the English trunk road budget in the period 1976–77 to 1978–79.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeI am afraid that benefits vary so widely that any overall assessment would be misleading. But the underspend in these three years of the previous Administration totalled some £190 million. Small bypasses cost anything between £0.5 million and £3 million or more.
§ Mr. Cyril D. Townsendasked the Minister of Transport whether any calculation has been made of the annual fuel savings likely to arise from the M25 when completed.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeWhile the likely effect of each section on operating costs—including fuel use—has been calculated at appropriate stages in its assessment, these studies have taken place over some 10 years on bases appropriate to the particular section at the particular time. They cannot be used to produce a consistent total, and no separate calculation of the total effect has been made.
§ Mr. Cyril D. Townsendasked the Minister of Transport, in view of the inability of his Department to spend all the resources made available to trunk road construction in England since 1976–77, if he will transfer resources from the trunk road programme to those local authorities, such as the Greater London Council, which have a substantial road programme but lack the necessary funds to carry it out; and if he will make a statement.
76W
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeI do not expect any significant underspending of the cash limit for motorways and trunk roads in 1979–80. Details of the Government's future expenditure plans will be given in the forthcoming White Paper.
§ Mr. Cyril D. Townsendasked the Minister of Transport if he will make a statement on the delays to the M1 widening scheme and the M25 Al2-A13 section; and what effect these delays will have on the ability to spend the planned £312 million budget for English trunk road construction next year.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeThe M1 scheme and part of the M25 one were challenged in the High Court. Legal challenges cause delays to schemes until they are resolved but such delays are of course quite outside our Department's control. We have been informed that the case against the M1 widening is being withdrawn. We shall be inviting tenders for this urgently needed scheme shortly. While work on two lengths of M25 Al2-A13 is proceeding normally, further delay on the challenged section would alter the pattern of spending in 1980–1981 but not its total; more schemes will be ready than the funds available. Prolonged delay to this urgent scheme would, however, be very unfortunate.
§ Mr. Cyril D. Townsendasked the Minister of Transport what is the accumulated underspending of the English trunk road construction budget since 1976–77; what was the planned budget at the beginning of 1979–80 for that financial year; what is now the estimated outturn for the current year; for what reasons the outturn differs from the planned budget; and whether some of the unspent funds accumulated in past years could be applied to road schemes delayed for financial reasons in the current year and future years.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeFor technical reasons, it is not possible accurately to revalue underspends from different years to a common price base. However, the total underspend on the English motorway and trunk road construction programme for the years 1976–77 to 1978–79 inclusive was approximately £190 million at 1979 survey prices.
77WFor an explanation of the difference between the expenditure planned for 1979–80 and the likely out-turn I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Wainwright) on 30 January 1980.—[Vol. 977, c. 699–700.]
Although there would be obvious attractions in carrying forward past under-spending to increase the provision for later years, it is difficult to devise a scheme for doing this which does not increase public expenditure and the public sector borrowing requirement. Further consideration is, however, being given to this question.
UNDER 15 YEARS OLD CHILD PASSENGER CASUALTIES IN CARS AND TAXIS: GREAT BRITAIN, 1978 Killed Seriously injured Slightly injured All Front seat passengers … … 18 500 2,400 2,918 Back seat passengers … … 48 894 5,648 6,590 Passengers with unknown seating … … 6 84 633 723 All … … 72 1,478 8,681 10,231