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Mr. Eric Pickles (Brentwood and Ongar): The hon. Lady is right to suggest that hypothecation is possibly the most exciting change in transport policy that we have seen so far. When I had the honour to serve with her on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee, we were very careful about our drafting in regard to hypothecation.

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is regrettable that, after the Deputy Prime Minister achieved the change, an official in his Department--in connivance with a Treasury

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official--changed the rules slightly, allowing sums taken for hypothecation to be spread and to be spent on matters other than transport? That means that the money goes straight back into the Treasury coffers.

Mrs. Dunwoody: The Deputy Prime Minister has secured a 10-year time scale, which I think will enable the public transport system to be transformed. I wish that he had secured a longer time, but I am sure that any incoming Labour Government will be able to continue his excellent transport plans, and that, when we see the advances that are made over the next 10 years, we shall be able to plan for even more hypothecation in the future.

Mr. Jenkin: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Mrs. Dunwoody: I do not want to take too long, but I am terribly honoured that the hon. Gentleman wishes to intervene.

Mr. Jenkin: I reciprocate the sentiment. However, we remain suspicious of hypothecation. Unless it also means additionality, hypothecation means nothing. According to a written answer in Hansard dated 20 July 1998, there is no public expenditure provision at all for London Underground after April 2000. If that is so, does it not mean that Government grant for the public-private partnership will be replaced by the revenues from congestion taxes and parking charges? Where is the fairness in that, given that motorists are already being fleeced by the Treasury? Why should the grant be taken away as well?

Mrs. Dunwoody: I do not share this terrible worry about the motorist, for a very simple reason. If we had continued to take no action in relation to either road transport or public transport, the whole road system would have been in continual gridlock.

Mr. Redwood: The hon. Lady is changing the subject.

Mrs. Dunwoody: No. It is not possible to deal with a problem by ignoring it; that just makes it a hundred times worse. The present Government have grasped the nettle of difficult decision making. In many instances, they are telling people who use public transport but want to retain their cars, "That's fine, but you should be aware of the cost to both the environment and the quality of life for people who live in cities--and the cost to the facilities that you yourselves want."

I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will talk to the Home Office about the whole question of police enforcement. So far, there has been no discussion of the impact of road injuries, of the need to set targets, or of the need to accept the fact that, although the number of injuries is going down, the number of serious injuries continues to rise. I hope that we will be able to say to the Home Office that now is the time to put traffic law enforcement much higher up the list. It should be part of chief constables' core duties. They should find it possible to have considerably more energy directed towards traffic law enforcement. If they are not able to do so, the Government will have to consider seriously the creation of a traffic police. If they do not, we will pay a price.

The role of the Home Office goes beyond that: it needs to look at the whole question of crime on public transport. There will undoubtedly be positive benefits from policies

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that allow local authorities to enter into partnership with police authorities to ensure that there is better policing of public transport early in the morning and late at night. Women need to be assured that they can travel safely and comfortably to the place where they need to be.

I hope that private Members' legislation will be introduced to allow us to impound illegally operated lorries. I was sad that such a power was not in one of this year's private Members' Bills. It would save lives. It is essential. That gap in the legislation needs to be addressed.

The Strategic Rail Authority will produce enormous changes in the next five years. The operating companies will be required to work together. It is only since the Deputy Prime Minister succeeded in persuading them to do a lot more things in common that we have at last addressed the whole question of information, and of information systems that actually work.

I meant to bring along a marvellous letter that I received today from Virgin Trains, after two months: they were sorry that I had used the internet to ask for information on a train direct to Manchester and had been told that I should change at Crewe, but that was because I had tapped in the wrong information--I should have asked for trains not just in the next hour but throughout the day. Had I done so, I would apparently have got information about more than the one train. I explained to Virgin when I wrote that I knew that Crewe was the centre of the universe but that it came as a considerable surprise that it had just learned that as well.

We talk about what Virgin will do with its new tilting trains. We all want new efficient rolling stock. We want it to be built in this country. We build good engines in Crewe. It would be nice if people did not import them from elsewhere, but bought them from this country. However, no matter how good the rolling stock, if the rails are not there, it will not make any difference to the speed, efficiency or safety of the trains.

Railways have strange habits: all trains have to run on rails. Unless Railtrack is prepared to provide high-quality rails, many of our plans for an integrated railway system will be as nought. The quality of investment and of equipment and the safety of signalling equipment will be so substandard that we shall be faced with continuing problems.

For the first time in 20 years, we have a Minister who understands that transport has to be one of the most important policies that any Government espouse. All of us want changes in education and health. All of us understand that constitutional change frequently pushes out other, more domestic, measures. The reality for our constituents and everybody fighting their way on to the underground system is that, unless we get high-quality, safe public transport in place, none of the things that we want for our country in the new millennium will be possible, and we shall all suffer as a result.

8.45 pm

Mr. Norman Baker (Lewes): I welcome the comments of the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich(Mrs. Dunwoody). I agree with most of what she said, as I usually do on transport matters. I welcome, too, the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister and his team have not left

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the Chamber throughout the debate. That example might be followed by some of their Front-Bench colleagues in other Departments.

I am afraid that the Tories are in opposition mode. Their opposition is characterised by cynical opportunism and a cavalier disregard for the facts. I listened to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) introduce the debate, but I did not like what I heard. Regardless of his portfolio, he always plays the man rather than the ball. On genetic modification he attacks Lord Sainsbury, and on transport he attacks the Deputy Prime Minister. The Government have made some mistakes on transport, and I shall come to them, but we need a mature debate rather than the personal attacks that we get from the Opposition, especially from the right hon. Member for Wokingham. He exaggerates the Government's faults to an absurd degree and stands with his hands clasped and a halo on his head pretending that year zero started on 1 May 1997. In truth, the inheritance from the previous Tory Government was lamentable.

Just in case there is any suspicion that the Conservatives could be the saviours of transport policy, let me remind the right hon. Member for Wokingham of the record of his county council in Buckinghamshire. I have chosen Buckinghamshire because it is one of the few councils that has been solidly Tory year after year. Even in the dark days, it was the one county council controlled by the Conservatives. In 1994-95 it spent £52.03 per head on road maintenance--an issue that the Conservatives are always keen to mention. In 1998-99, that was down to £33.71. In 1994-95 it was spending a total of £14.8 million on road maintenance and by1997-98 that was down to £8.5 million. This year, the council has stopped producing the figure for its council tax leaflets so we are not sure what it is, but as I understand it, it has dropped still further. That is the gap between the rhetoric which promises that everything will be wonderful under the Conservatives and the reality when they are in control of a council. It is not a record of which to be proud.

During their 18 years in government they had a twin-track policy of private and public transport. The private element was the great car economy, which was the phrase of the Prime Minister of the day, now Baroness Thatcher. Another boast was that they had the biggest road building programme since the Romans. They are still on the same track. Their motion today criticises the Government for having

"no policies to increase road or rail capacity in line with traffic growth forecasts".

The motion moved by the Conservatives on 18 March condemned the Government for

"cutting the programme of motorway and trunk road improvements to 37 schemes, which will increase congestion and pollution which the Government say they oppose".--[Official Report, 18 March 1999; Vol. 327, c. 1322.]

How depressing that is.

During their 18 years, the Conservative Government made many mistakes on transport policy. They attempted to build us out of problems year after year while watching congestion get worse and worse. Increasing numbers of environmental areas and sites of special scientific interest were destroyed. The incidence of asthma increased--one in six children now has asthma. There were more and more health problems, and the Confederation of British

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Industry identified £19 billion a year as being lost because of congestion. Despite all that, it was not until the end of their time in government that we had a little relief when they at last recognised that it is not possible to build our way out of a problem. The report from the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment--produced by the then Department of Transport--recognised that building more roads encourages more traffic. The Conservatives finally accepted that--hooray for that.

The Tories cut their road-building programme dramatically, and cited environmental reasons for doing so. We thought that they had made many mistakes over 18 years, but at last they had recognised the fact that building more roads was not the answer. We now find out that in opposition they have unlearned that painful lesson, which took them so many years to learn. They are now back to where they were in the 1970s and 1980s. They think that if we build more and more roads, more and more bypasses, and more and more dual carriageways, then suddenly everything will be all right again. What nonsense.

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