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Mr. Duncan: I apologise for intervening because I do not want to take up the Minister's time, but, in the
remaining minutes of the debate, will she announce positive action that the Government will take in response to the requests of her hon. Friends?
Ms Jowell: The hon. Gentleman should contain his impatience because I shall certainly set out what action the Government will take.
The Department of Health funds research through different sources, and has recently funded research on CFS/ME at the university of Manchester on "The role of noradrenaline in the neuropsychological pathogenesis of the chronic fatigue syndrome." We look forward to the results of that research being made available.
I underline the fact that the Medical Research Council is always willing to consider new ideas for research and will judge applications on their scientific merits. Everything that we have heard this morning demonstrates that there is a need to prod scientists with an interest and competence in the condition to consider submitting proposals so that we can close some of the gaps in our knowledge.
Important research is being carried out in related areas, including the study of molecules and cells, and genetics and infections and immunity, which will inform our understanding of the causes of CFS/ME.
The Department of Health has been funding, through its own research and development programme, a research project called "Should GPs manage chronic fatigue syndrome? A controlled trial", which has recently reported. Unfortunately, its results were inconclusive. In addition, the NHS standing group on health technology has recently identified the latest series of priority areas for which it anticipates commissioning primary research or systematic reviews. One of the topics identified is management strategies for chronic fatigue syndrome.
In all cases, priorities for our research budgets reflect analysis of the burden of disease, potential benefits and broader Government priorities. I hope that the message will go out to those with an interest in pursuing research on CFS/ME.
The difficulties of defining a cause for CFS/ME mean that there is no single diagnostic test for the condition. Diagnosis hinges largely on the elimination of other possible conditions through a series of specific tests. Treatment to relieve the wide variety of symptoms that patients can experience is, therefore, a matter for individual doctors to decide in consultation with their patients. That causes problems of inconsistency and creates difficulties in developing the evidence-based protocol that we want increasingly to be applied in the NHS. Treatment is largely focused on the relief of symptoms rather than on curing the condition, which should clearly be the aim.
The working group is due to report in summer 2000. There is wide representation in the group so that we can look beyond the medical issues to consider management, care and support for carers. The group includes representatives of carers and voluntary groups. We shall, on the basis of the chief medical officer's report, issue practical advice to the NHS to improve support and, in turn, the quality of life of people who suffer from this awful and debilitating condition.
Mr. David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden):
Before I begin what I promise the Minister will be a very brief speech on this matter, I should like to put on record, and communicate through him, my gratitude to the Deputy Prime Minister, who, despite the pressure on his time, has afforded me a meeting and paid a great deal of attention to this essentially local issue. I hope that the Minister will pass on that compliment.
I shall first describe the nature and location of the road and the junction. The House will know that the ports of Liverpool and Hull are joined by the M62--part of the great motorway network covering the country. The last 25 miles, or thereabouts, of the road into Hull is not motorway but dual carriageway--the A63, which, apart from some long, sweeping curves, is a very fast road in every respect.
At the Melton junction on this fast road, there is a set of traffic lights which, due to the road's sweeping curves, are virtually invisible to on-coming traffic until a few hundred metres away. They are the only lights between Liverpool and Hull. Indeed, in terms of the motorway network, they are the only lights between London and Hull, Bristol and Hull or Birmingham and Hull, for that matter. Because the lights are almost invisible until traffic is nearly upon them, reacting to them is very difficult, particularly if, for any reason, there is a tailback.
Psychologically, the road is a motorway, but physically it is virtually a country road, with crossings, very complex five-phase traffic lights and, just a little further along from the junction, a right turning into a village road. That is not at all what one would expect of a road on which traffic travels at such speed.
As a result, there have been many accidents over the past five years. There were fatal vehicle accidents in 1994 and 1996, and a double fatality in March this year. A pedestrian was killed near the lights, and a further double fatality occurred at the Colby Park crossing, just a short distance from the junction. It is only by the grace of God that there was not yet another fatality when a small girl on a bicycle was narrowly missed by three cars and hit by a fourth. She was badly hurt, but, thank God, survived. In the past decade, there have been 40 accidents involving injury, in which almost 60 people have been hurt. Of course, many other accidents have not been reported because they involve only damage, not injury.
This is the worst traffic blackspot in the Humberside police area. Indeed, it is the worst within a 50-mile radius of the Deputy Prime Minister's constituency and, of course, mine, as we are near neighbours. Why?
Police statistics tell us a great deal. The problem is not weather-driven: 90 per cent. of accidents have occurred when there has been perfectly good visibility. Nor, despite what I said earlier, is the problem due to people not knowing the road. Some 70 per cent. of accidents occur on the westbound carriageway that leaves Hull. Almost by definition, therefore, drivers are local or have been through the junction before. In addition, in the majority of accidents where there has been some identifiable driver error--a blameworthy component, as it were--the blameworthy driver is local. It is therefore not just a case of people being surprised by road conditions.
The problem is the design of Melton junction and the associated Colby Park crossing further up the road. The crossing is appropriate to an earlier era. It is appropriate to a low-speed, low-intensity road, not--psychologically--a motorway that carries 40,000 vehicles a day. I shall be blunt: I do not think that my constituents should face the fatal consequences of 1950s road design as we enter a new century. Nor do my constituents think they should.
The matter is one of enormous local concern. A large campaign to solve the problem has attracted the support of many local individuals and businesses, all local parish councils, the local authority, the local police force and our much-respected local newspaper the Hull Daily Mail.
What can we do? Clearly, a new road junction is needed. We need a junction that is capable of dealing with traffic growth of at least 4 per cent. per annum, as well as with increases as a result of local development. I shall return to that. Meanwhile, it is immediately necessary somehow to tackle the cause of the accidents: the speed of the traffic going through the junction. Until we have a new junction, I want the speed limit on a one-mile stretch either side of the Melton junction to be cut to 50 mph. To enforce that, I want traffic cameras and active policing, and I want to ensure that everybody understands that exceeding the speed limit will lead to certain conviction. I want the Minister to tell me today that the Government intend to issue orders to achieve that end, and that they will ensure that resources are available.
Given the sort of problems thrown up by traffic cameras, a solution is not as simple as it looks. I shall listen with interest to the Minister's response. I stress that it is important that such action is taken virtually immediately.
More important in the longer term, there must be a new junction. There is a grade-separated junction in the road expenditure plans of the Department and the Highways Agency, which is rather inaccurately described as a private finance initiative project--the Minister may want to tell us about that--but the projections for it seem to assume, as do Highways Agency responses to local developers and the council, a completion date of 2006. In other words, the junction will be completed in seven years' time. How many lives that will cost I do not know. I know that it will be too many. One death is too many; if we do not act, there will be more.
The Minister knows that I have been a member of the Cabinet and have served in Departments. I do not therefore subscribe to the Whitehall economics of death, if I may put it quite so starkly--the idea that one can value loss of life in economic terms. Every death is a tragedy and a mortal loss to the wives, husbands, children, mothers, fathers and loved ones of those who die. I do not want there to be one more death on the road. I want the new junction to be built as soon as is physically possible.
East Riding of Yorkshire unitary council and the local developer involved believe that, with reasonable good fortune, the project could be completed by 2002 or 2003 and that, even if there were a public inquiry, it should be achievable before 2004. Indeed, so confident is the council of that timetable that one of its officers told me that it is willing to act as the agency for completing the project. In order to achieve it, the necessary funding must be available, obviously. In addition, however, there must be the political will to give the project its proper priority and, if I may be blunt, the Highways Agency must get its finger out and get on with it.
I am not interested in scoring political points. I know that the Deputy Prime Minister drives through the junction regularly, and he has made it clear to me that he understands the problem only too well and wants it to be solved--for which, as I have said, I am grateful. So this is not a political battle. If anything, it is a battle with bureaucracy.
We all know the problem: capable and well-meaning civil servants and Government agencies face competing demands from all over the country for money, time and scarce resources. The understandable human response is to deal with such demands in turn, carefully and at a steady pace. I am afraid that Whitehall has a tendency to gold-plate and to be over-cautious in its approach. That, in turn, slows things down even more. Such an approach is no doubt entirely rational, but, in the meantime, this stretch of road is killing people. It is doing so with inexorable regularity and, as traffic flows inevitably increase, the problem will inevitably get worse. The project therefore needs to be given high priority and needs to be approached with a sense of urgency and a determination to complete by 2002-03, not 2006. I ask the Minister to ensure that his colleagues devote every effort to achieving that target.
I shall conclude my speech so that the Minister may have his say and respond positively. In summary, in the immediate term, I want a new 50 mph speed limit. I want it to be strictly policed, with speed cameras and full enforcement. I want a new junction, to be as fast as possible within the law. That is what I ask of the Government, and that is what I ask the Minister to comment on today.
12.30 pm
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