HC Deb 16 July 1981 vol 8 cc456-7W
Mr. Arthur Lewis

asked the Secretary of State for Transport whether he will give, at the latest and most convenient stated date, the numbers of peers of the realm who hold any appointment sponsored by his Department; what situation or appointment each one holds; how many hours per week are given to the work connected with it; what are the salaries or expenses paid; and how the later figures compare with May 1979.

Mr. Fowler

Peers currently holding appointments in bodies sponsored by my Department, the appointments they hold, the days per week/month that they work, their current salary rates and the salary rates for May 1979 are as follows:

Mr. Kenneth Clarke

Eleven major repair contracts were planned for the M1 this year, of which one has already been completed. Good progress is being made at the moment with a further five contracts and four will finish in October. The last part of this phased programme is expected to finish on schedule in December. The total cost of these eleven contracts is expected to amount to nearly £19 million.

We have deliberately phased the programme over the maximum possible time to avoid concentrating the disruption in any particular month. The first contract was let in early April and the last will start in late August. Only very limited carriageway work can be tackled between October and March because of the need for reasonably warm dry conditions to lay asphalt and to cure concrete.

In drawing up the programme we paid attention to the need to avoid bottlenecks at particular locations. We have for example deliberately deferred urgent reconstruction work between junctions 6 and 8 in Hertfordshire until after the widening improvement has been completed. Some delays, particularly at rush hours, are inevitable. However, our traffic management techniques continue to improve and have been quite successful in keeping delays to traffic to the unavoidable minimum.

All this work was essential and had to be undertaken this year if the motorway was to continue to fulfil properly its vital transport role. Once completed, each stretch of reinforced motorway should provide many years of trouble-free service for heavy modern traffic.