| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
9.40 pm
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex): I might spoil the day for the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) by welcoming many of his comments. The hon. Gentleman is right to emphasise the connection between transport and the environment--a connection that we made in our period in office and emphasised in the 1996 Green Paper. He is also right to talk about the need for joined-up living, and there is much to be commended in Lord Rogers's recent report on the urban renaissance, as he calls it, especially when it comes to ensuring that we build on brown-field sites. The hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) mentioned that issue, and we share his concern about protecting the environment and creating the critical mass in urban centres so that transport can be efficient and public transport can work effectively.
I also share the view of the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish that we should consume more local produce, not less. That means, perhaps controversially, challenging the direction in which supermarkets have taken us. I am a strong supporter, for example, of the new farmers' market in my constituency in Colchester. That is the way that consumers, environmentalists and all of us want to go.
The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish was being a little more controversial than he realised when he talked about the need for overall fiscal neutrality in the tax changes on fuel, because that is certainly not his Government's policy. I also agree with him about the need to educate people about safety on our roads, especially the need to cut speed. Enforcement and speed humps are not necessarily the instant answer to every dangerous stretch of road.
The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish is also right in emphasising the need for quality public transport. On buses, it is hard to offer that quality, and tram systems, such as the Manchester metrolink--which was built under the Conservative Government--are the right way forward for public transport. We need a proper commitment to public transport as alternatives to the car. Unfortunately, the report, which was co-authored by the hon. Gentleman, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) and the rest of the Committee, does not reflect such objectives as dispassionately as they would like.
The report is disappointing. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) about the issue of taxation. It is sad that the Government's policies are characterised by their taxing motorists more and more for less and less benefit to the travelling public than we have ever seen before.
The really disappointing feature of the report is that it is stuck in a time warp. It is fighting the battles of the 1980s, which the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich should know she lost. She lost the arguments about bus deregulation and competition, and rail privatisation. The evidence shows that transport investment is increasing in the industries privatised by the Conservative Government, which include airlines, airports, buses and coaches, and the railway--investment in which has doubled since it was privatised. Those areas are seeing investment, growth and success and we can look forward to a better future.
Mr. John Cryer (Hornchurch):
The hon. Gentleman talked about investment in the railway network. What does he say about the eight railway lines--at least--that face cuts under privatisation?
Mr. Jenkin:
I would look at the evidence. Annual investment in the railways has doubled since privatisation. We want that investment to grow, as the railways are not yet good enough. Even Sir Alastair Morton, the rail supremo appointed by the Deputy Prime Minister, has said that it was always going to take 10 years after privatisation to get the railway system working. That view has been endorsed by the Government.
The growth in investment in all the modes of public transport that we privatised contrasts starkly with the catastrophe in the transport system for which the Government are responsible. Investment in the tube system has been slashed, after the Government cancelled the Conservative Government's investment plans. [Interruption.] Labour Members may laugh, but I would not be laughing if I were a tube commuter. I seem to have provoked the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Efford), so I shall let him have a go at intervening.
Mr. Clive Efford (Eltham):
My question is quite simple. Why did the previous Conservative Government cut £320 million from tube investment just before the 1997 election?
Mr. Jenkin:
The hon. Gentleman should look at the figures. During the previous Government's last year in office, more than £943 million was invested in the tube. At today's prices, that is equal to more than £1 billion. This Government have halved that investment. The hon. Gentleman may say that the Government inherited the
Mr. Efford:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Jenkin:
No. The hon. Gentleman has been squashed, and that is enough of that.
I say to the Minister that we need more investment in public transport. That investment was secured in the industries that we privatised, but the Government's public-private partnership is a fiasco. The Minister should apologise to the people of London, who suffer every day from worsening congestion. [Interruption.] I can hardly hear myself think for the Minister shouting hysterically at me from a sedentary position.
Madam Speaker:
Order. We want no comments from sedentary positions.
Mr. Jenkin:
We want investment in public transport and in alternatives to the car. We want there to be more choice so that there are alternatives to the car. However, the most fundamental problems that the Government have failed to address are traffic growth and congestion on our roads.
It is one thing to plan for alternatives to the car 20 years ahead, and to accomplish all the projects that the previous Conservative Government started. Those strands of thinking are evident in the Government's transport White Paper. It is quite another thing, and absolutely daft, simply to deny that traffic growth exists, slash the roads programme and expect the problem to go away. That is what the Government have done, however. Theirs is the most irresponsible and congestion-generating programme that could be conceived. As an act of deliberate policy, the Government have cut the programme of road improvements that would have relieved the congestion.
As we approach the close of the debate, one figure in the Government's estimates needs to be put in context. The Government--supported by a Select Committee which is, I am sorry to say, more concerned about propping up a failing Deputy Prime Minister and a failing Government with a failed transport policy than with its proper task of scrutinising the Executive--are fond of claiming that they are putting extra money into transport. We are told that the Government are putting an extra £1.8 billion into public transport, but we should examine the figures in the comprehensive spending review. That review shows that public spending on transport last year was £4.7 billion. This year it is £4.6 billion, and next year it will be £4.5 billion. The amount is therefore declining--the Government are cutting public transport investment.
That is the Government's policy. They have not only cancelled private investment schemes for the tube and the national air traffic control system--another scandal of which the Minister is in charge: they are cutting investment in those very transport networks that they claim to favour. They claim that public transport is their great priority, but they are taxing road users more and
more. They are planning more and more taxes, so the road user will be fleeced, but less and less will be spent on public transport.
That is the catastrophe that the Government are visiting on the travelling public. The Government know that they should be ashamed of themselves. The Prime Minister knows that he is ashamed of his Deputy Prime Minister.
The Minister for Transport (Mrs. Helen Liddell):
We heard an interesting comment from the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) as he concluded. He seems to think that there is something wrong with hon. Members representing and taking an interest in their constituents. I wonder whether some of my colleagues in Essex might care to draw that to the attention of the hon. Gentleman's constituents.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) for her helpful contribution at the beginning of the debate and I also thank her co-Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett). The Select Committee has put a considerable amount of work into the report and I commend all members of the Committee for the work that they put in--even those who could only abstain and who could not attend to cast a vote at the appropriate time.
In making that interesting point about the previous Government being on the road to Damascus, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich missed out some of the U-turns that they have been doing on that road, as we saw today. That fact was very much summed up in the speech by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray), who failed to recognise that the quotations that my hon. Friends were using were from the 1996 Conservative Green Paper. He also failed to recall that devolution means that transport is largely a reserved matter--only a few aspects of transport are devolved.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |