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Mr. Shaun Woodward (Witney): Tax them.
Mr. Gray: That is right. Let us tax them. We cannot have all these people going to supermarkets; let us tax them. First, however, let us ask Safeway to charge them for using its car park. What a nonsense. Retail charging would bring in only 6p per person per year, which will not greatly change behaviour. All this constitutes is a tax on the buyer and a tax on the driver. That is what new Labour is about: tax, tax and tax again.
Labour Members say that the whole point about the charges is that they will be hypothecated. They will be hypothecated for 10 years, of course; no more than that. After 10 years, the funds will go into the Treasury. During the debate on the Greater London Authority, the Minister for Transport in London talked about how important it was that the mayor should have some revenue. The view is, "We will get the mayor some revenue. We will charge the motorist. That will be marvellous. Tax the motorist and pay the money to the mayor."
Britain's roads are at a standstill. Britain's transport is in a shambles. The Labour party is to blame. In its paper, the only solution that it can come up with is a few warm words, a few committees, a few shiny bits of paper and tax, tax and tax again. Today, we have come up with a new document that lays out some vibrant, important, interesting and useful proposals for getting Britain's transport going.
Mr. Brake:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Gray:
I am just winding up my speech, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
Mr. Brake:
The hon. Gentleman was on the subject of useful points that the Conservative document proposes. Are two of them getting rid of traffic humps and stopping local authorities using traffic calming?
Mr. Gray:
No. Of course, those come into the document in a variety of ways, but we talk about removing the fuel duty escalator and getting petrol prices back down to where they should be. We talk about sorting out road freight, which the Government have driven off our roads and on to the continent. We are sorting out the trains and the buses. We are talking about practical and sensible transport policies to get Britain going again.
Mr. Paul Clark (Gillingham):
Will the hon. Member give way?
Mr. Gray:
I am sorry. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I am winding up my speech.
Mr. George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent, South):
For 21 minutes, the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) has tried to convince the House about why he abstained and saw fit not to have the courage of his convictions about the Committee's ninth report on the important issue of integrated transport policy. I have tried to recall how many sittings he attended. I am not sure; perhaps the record will show us. However, we have had 21 minutes of diatribe, with the hon. Gentleman trying to convince us that he feels strongly about these issues. One would have thought that he would have voted against the report. Nevertheless, that is for hon. Members to judge.
The Select Committee's report is important. What is worrying and discouraging is that the Opposition have tried to convince the public that the Government's integrated transport policy is anti-car. Of course, it is no such thing and the Select Committee has made it clear that it believes that it is no such thing. It is pro-transport. There is a big difference.
It is wrong to think that all of us can get in our cars and, particularly in urban areas, use them as we wish--to take our children to school and all the rest of it--without thinking about the effects on the environment, pollution, congestion and all the other issues that we are tremendously concerned about. The notion that those issues can be ignored and that people can simply say, "Government policy is anti-car and the Conservative party is pro-car, so we do not recognise that those things are a problem", seems disingenuous to say the least.
It is important to recognise that this is the first White Paper on integrated transport for some 20 years--that is my understanding from listening to the evidence to the Select Committee. That suggests that the previous Government, despite all the rhetoric and nonsense that Conservative Members come up with, were a little shy of tackling the problem. We could all play politics with the issue. Although I know that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire is quite adept playing politics--but abstains when it comes to voting--I think that he and I could agree that transportation is an extremely important issue.
The Select Committee's report is an extremely important document in the transport debate. Opposition Members who say that the Government's transport policy is anti-car, in an attempt to devalue the Government's policy and the Committee's ninth report, devalue only the Opposition. Particularly in urban areas, even car owners understand that we cannot use our cars as we wish, to go wherever we like. We realise that car use has knock-on effects and that we have to grapple with transport issues. The report identifies those issues. Moreover, as is right and proper, the report does not agree with every Government transport policy.
The public will not accept statements that the Government's policy is anti-car. Moreover, claims that it is simply demean the real arguments. We should not play party politics with the issue simply to make political capital, as the hon. Member for North Wiltshire has tried to do. That will not wash.
If the integrated transport policy is to succeed in the medium to long term--it is a medium to long-term issue--we shall have to promote public transport, which
will entail nothing less than a renaissance of public transportation. The report identifies and addresses that issue--which I accept is a challenge for the Government.
The Government cannot develop and implement an integrated transport policy simply by saying that it will be done. We have not only to develop objectives, but to will and effect their implementation. First, however, we have to ensure that the relevant arguments are identified and made, as the report attempts to do.
We have to ensure also that, particularly in urban areas, more public transportation is provided as other transport measures are implemented. The report rightly identifies that requirement. As the report states, if we say that there will be restrictions--either fiscal or physical, such as bus lanes--on motor car use, but do not provide public transport alternatives, there is a danger that it will be difficult to make the policy a success. The report says not simply that the Government are right in their policy, but, "We think that the Government's objectives are right, but Ministers have to take certain actions to ensure that people have transportation alternatives."
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) mentioned the Manchester area. In my constituency, 3.2 km of motorway have just been built, right through an urban area. At 1992 prices--the previous Government decided to build the motorway--it has cost £40 million per mile. By the time the bills are paid, there will not be much change from £200 million. The experts tell me that, within 10 years, the road will have reached its design capacity--in other words, it will be congested.
The new A50 is designed to replace the old A50, which runs right through Stoke-on-Trent for some 13 miles, north to south. If we do not use this window of opportunity to develop public transport in that area, we shall have two congested roads in 10 or 12 years, and we shall have spent a quarter of a billion pounds on them. If that is the Opposition's transport policy, they should say so.
Mr. Paul Clark:
I agree with my hon. Friend. A new bypass has been developed for the Medway towns, and rightly so. Does he agree that, because of the opportunities afforded by the Government to make sure that regional transport plans are developed, we have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to take advantage of these bypasses?
Mr. Stevenson:
The Government's policies are not only working, but providing opportunities.
To carry out the policy, resources must be made available, as the Select Committee identified. To ring-fence resources for 10 years and to hypothecate them are important. However, as the Select Committee pointed out, that is putting the cart before the horse. We ought to be providing the resources now, and hypothecating them against future revenue streams.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish):
It is a little disappointing to be winding up on behalf of the Select Committee after such a short debate. It was a
It was disappointing also that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) felt that he had to make a speech of 21 minutes, again to filibuster. Some of us on the Select Committee have felt sorry for the hon. Gentleman, who came on to the Committee at the start of this Parliament and is still there, whereas five of his colleagues have found their way on to the Conservative Front Bench. Following his speech today, I understand why he is still with us on the Select Committee.
I want to put on record my appreciation of Professor Peter Jones, who gave sound advice to the Select Committee, and to Kevin Lee, who worked hard to make sure that the evidence was nicely marshalled. I pay tribute also to all those who gave evidence. Select Committees depend on those people outside who take the time and trouble to give evidence.
We must look back over the previous two years and see what progress we have made on integrated transport. First, there is a recognition by the Government that we must put the environment and transport together. For the past 50 years at least, people have taken travel for granted. The assumption has been that travel is easy and that if one does a little more, it does not matter. We must recognise that it does matter, and that we cannot go on increasing the amount of travel that people do without thinking about it. If we are to integrate transport, the first thing we need is joined-up living. We have to try to ensure that as many people as possible, for as much of the time as possible, can live, work, shop, enjoy their leisure and take their children to school locally, without the need for expensive travel.
If we can get that message across over the next few years, we can make most people's quality of life far better, reducing congestion and pollution and making travel far easier. That point is at the heart of the Government's thinking and of their proposals for integrated transport, and the report emphasises it very strongly: it is the way forward.
We must not only ensure that services are available locally, but encourage people to buy local produce. I am not a great beer drinker, but it strikes me as significant that when I became a Member of Parliament 25 years ago, most of the beer drunk in Greater Manchester was brewed there, whereas most of the alcohol drunk in Manchester today rattles round the country, round Europe or even across the world. Has that choice been worth the extra pollution? Would not it be far better to buy local produce than stuff that has moved all round the world?
I believe firmly in the fuel escalator, and in congestion charging and charging for workplace parking; but if charging is to work, people must see the results at the point at which the charge is made. The Committee considered the example of the Netherlands where, to make the fuel escalator acceptable, income tax went down as the escalator went up. I do not mind what the Government come up with--it could be a reduced television licence for pensioners--but we must have some direct, hypothecated measure to go with the escalator, so that people can see that the tax is designed to change people's behaviour and not simply to raise money for the Treasury.
We must do much more to encourage people to do their own bit. Simply recognising that the speed limit should be enforced by us, and not by external means, would make a huge difference. Experiments on the M25 showed that if people travelled at lower speeds, but managed to retain those speeds throughout the journey, they got there quicker than if they went fast and then slow.
It is crazy to build speed humps in urban areas when, if we could simply persuade people to stay within the 30 mph limit, the roads would be far safer. One of the weaknesses that the Committee identified when it considered integrated transport was the failure to bring the Home Office on board and to convince the police that they have a major role in ensuring that transport laws, such as those on bus lanes, are enforced.
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