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11.11 am

Mr. Jacques Arnold (Gravesham): I do not believe that the House should rise before it has addressed the important problem of the shambles in which the Kent highways programme now finds itself. The Government announced £81 million of funding for the Kent highways programme, which was by far the largest amount to be granted to a roads programme in the country, yet the Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition controlling Kent county council have that programme totally out of balance.

The reason for the shambles is that, year after year, the council has asked permission to build the Medway relief roads but, year after year, after receiving such permission, it has not gone ahead because it has never been ready to do so. The council has taken the allocated money in those years and put it into other schemes, which have now started. Consequently, the Kent county council highways programme is choked with commitments.

We should remember that the £81 million for this year's highway programme is an absolute record, but that commitments already undertaken by the council have absorbed all but £7 million of that figure. The council has already approved five schemes, amounting to £43 million, which it must somehow accommodate within the £7 million. Recently, the council decided to spread the money among three of the schemes.

What worries me is that the council is now trying a sleight-of-hand by spending money this year that may or may not be allocated to it in future years. It has put together a proposal to borrow £20 million to £25 million from Rochester city council, English Partnerships and any other company that is foolish enough to lend to it so that it can proceed with the Medway relief roads. That proposal would choke the Kent highways programme even further.

The council now proposes to ask the Minister with responsibility for local transport and road safety--my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris)--to agree to that ludicrous proposal. I suggest, in the interests of that area and of sound finances, that the ministerial answer should be a categorical no, not least because we do not need the Wainscott bypass.

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The hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), the Opposition spokesman on roads, recently visited the area. He told the press that the Medway tunnel was a "white elephant", and he blamed the Government because he claimed that they had not funded the connecting roads. Quite frankly, that statement shows appalling ignorance. As I have already explained, the Government have given authorisation for it year after year. The trouble is that Kent county council has spent the money elsewhere.

The roads have been delayed because of incompetence, subterfuge and a failure properly to assess alternative routes--for example, the historic Strood gyratory, which was the original proposal, or the Medway riverside route from Rochester to the junction with the M2, where it crosses the River Medway. The latter route, incidentally, has the virtue of demolishing the city of Rochester civic centre, which could be moved to a magnificent building on the Chatham maritime to serve the Medway towns' new unitary authority.

Not only did the Opposition spokesman on roads express his ignorance in those statements but his approach would sanction the county council's riding roughshod over my constituents by curtailing public consultations and public inquiry before pressing ahead with the proposal.

My constituents in the parishes of Higham, Shorne and Cobham bitterly resent the way in which Kent county council has ridden roughshod over their opinions, because the Wainscott bypass would pass through some of the most beautiful green belt in the London area. That land is very agriculturally productive and is, in fact, the last piece of green belt between the greater London conurbation and the Medway towns. The plan for the bypass should be returned to the drawing board, even at this late stage, so that alternatives can be considered. The case for doing so has been made very clearly on financial and environmental grounds.

If the council were to go ahead with the proposals, the Kent highways programme in 1997-98 would be totally clogged. The council would be spending £30 million to £40 million on the Medway relief roads alone, and it would spend even more on previous commitments. The result of pressing ahead would be that no progress will be made on the Ramsgate harbour road or on the south Thamesside development route, phases 2 and 3, which consists of the roads from Ebbsfleet to Greenhithe in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn).

Failure to proceed with those phases would jeopardise the development of the Thames gateway, which is close to the heart of the Government, and the Ebbsfleet developments, which are close to my constituents' hearts. All in all, the Kent county council highways programme is a sheer and utter shambles.

The development of the Thames gateway has not been helped by the delay in the vital south Thamesside development route, phase 4, which is effectively the Northfleet town bypass. Imagine having the channel tunnel rail link Thames tunnel excavations on one side of a town and the massive construction of the Ebbsfleet international station on the other side--with the monumental numbers of heavy goods vehicles and earth-moving vehicles passing between the two--when the only route between the two sides is through one's town. That horrible prospect is why

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the south Thamesside development route, phase 4, must be built before either of those projects is started. They are due to be started imminently.

We are desperate for progress on this project because of the shambolic way in which the Kent county council highways department has been handling it. In February last year, the residents of Northfleet saw the plans for the road. More than a year later, what progress has the Lib-Lab council made on it? It has taken a whole year for the KCC highways department to ask the council planning department for planning permission to build the bypass, and that permission has still not been granted. In fact, it has taken the Conservative Government to nudge the council forward by granting for this financial year a specifically allocated credit approval in order to push the project through along with another one. I can tell the House that my constituents and I will push Kent county council to get that project through because it is vital.

It is ironic that, while Kent county council's highways programme is in a shambles, the financial spokesmen for the Labour and Liberal parties on that council are now talking about a mini-budget for 1996-97, to be announced in June. Do you remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, the last Labour Government of all those years ago, when the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, came to the House with a succession of mini-budgets every year? We are asked by the Opposition to look forward to the prospect of a Labour Government; well, if one wants to see Labour government in action, one should go along to Kent county council, where mini-budgets and shambles are the order of the day.

Dr. Spink: Can my hon. Friend remind me whether that was the Labour Government who had inflation running at 27 per cent., about 10 times the current rate?

Mr. Arnold: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to remind us about what it means to have Labour in office.

We are told that there may be a Labour Government after the next general election. I will leave it to the electorate to decide, but I have my doubts, because if the electorate want any ideas about a Labour Government, they should just look at the antics of the Leader of the Opposition in the past week alone.

Just last Wednesday, I read in that excellent daily newspaper, Kent Today, a snippet entitled "Blair set to meet the shoppers". It informed its readers:

"Labour Leader Tony Blair will meet shoppers in Gravesend when he comes to town on Friday.

The MP is planning a walkabout in the St. George's and Anglesea centres during his visit".

I was rather surprised to read that, because I thought that it was parliamentary courtesy to inform a colleague if one intended to visit his or her constituency. That lack of courtesy is nothing new, however, because the Leader of the Opposition visited my constituency about a year ago and did not advise me in advance. On that occasion, I received an apology from a deputy spin doctor in the right hon. Gentleman's office, who referred to that omission as an "oversight". Well, well, well.

I wrote to the Leader of the Opposition immediately I got the wonderful news that he was showing some interest in Gravesham. I told him that, had he advised me in advance, I could have organised a visit for him. I wrote:

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"For instance, we might have visited the Enterprise Parks at Springhead and on the Imperial Business Estate where thousands of jobs have been created in recent years under the Enterprise Zone legislation of the Conservative Government (legislation against which the Labour Party voted). We could have visited our highly successful grammar schools and grant maintained schools, all of which are under threat from the Labour Party. Indeed, slightly more time permitting, we could have visited the site of the future Darenth Park Hospital where a brand new General Hospital costing £100 million is to be built, financed by the Private Finance Initiative, or alternatively visited the many farms in Gravesham. Both the hospital and the livelihood of many farm workers have been put at risk recently by the irresponsible scaremongering in the House of Commons by Harriet Harman."

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