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Mr. Redwood: That is a very powerful point. We well know that the Deputy Prime Minister has been rolled over by the Treasury on all sorts of matters--not least his failure to get decent money for investment in the London underground and for other necessary public transport investment.
Mr. Geraint Davies (Croydon, Central): Will the right hon. Gentleman explain how he would fill the black hole that would be created by cutting taxes on fuel and building 100 extra roads, which would represent an extra £3 billion of expenditure and lost tax in year one, not even taking into account the fact that he would not have any road toll charges? Would he cut health or education spending?
Mr. Redwood: The Government have not been taking account of the sensible, common-sense policies being launched by the Opposition. We intend to have a good sum to spend on health and education--we have always matched what the Government have offered on those--while having a lower overall total of public spending. I shall give two examples from my own budget: we said that we would abolish the regional development agencies and privatise the tube, taking all that expenditure out of the public accounts.
It is therefore easy to see how we can get by with lower taxes and lower overall spending while having extremely good, perhaps even higher, spending on services that really matter, such as schools and hospitals. Deliberate misinformation by the Government means that the point has not been understood, but many of my right hon. and hon. Friends with shadow ministerial briefs have also identified, as I have, areas where we would not match the Government's spending because we think that it is wasteful. This is a tax-and-waste Government; we would be a more sensible Government.
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington):
Did I hear the right hon. Gentleman correctly when he said that he would privatise the tube? Is that the position of the Conservative candidate for mayor of London?
Mr. Redwood:
It has been our mayoral candidate's position for a very long time. I recommend to the hon. Gentleman the Londoners' tube scheme, which includes free shares for all Londoners. That scheme will be very popular and our candidate will have great fun in putting it to London voters.
I have been deflected by interventions for rather a long time, and I must now make progress on some of other measures in the Queen's Speech. The main problem with the Secretary of State's transport Bill and policy is that they cannot possibly work. We still have no idea of what timetable the right hon. Gentleman has in mind for the Bill, let alone what transport it seeks to regulate. He recognises that people want to travel more and there is congestion, so he decides that the one thing to do is cut the capacity of the system.
The Government have failed to create conditions to increase rail capacity, and road capacity is cut by installing bus lanes on motorways and placing all sorts of impediments on main highways to stop or reduce the flow of traffic. Meanwhile, the Secretary of State cuts almost every bypass and road-widening out of the programme. The answer to travel congestion is more capacity. We need more capacity on public transport and we need to maximise the use of existing main roads and improving some of them.
Now I hear some people asking for a consensus approach to transport. Well, if the Government want that, they must start responding more positively to many of our good ideas that would make the situation much better. Has the Secretary of State read our ideas in "The Common Sense Revolution" which would increase the flows on our main roads? Why will he not take such action? Has he read our proposals for a Londoners' tube, with a massive increase in investment and capacity? Why will he not take that action? Has he seen our proposals for better car parks at bus interchanges and train stations? Why will he not get on with doing that?
The Government have only one answer to congestion--blame and tax the motorist. If the motorist is moving, tax him, and get him through the congestion charge. If the motorist is stationary, tax him, and get him through the parking charge. Now that some of the traffic jams in and out of our main cities are so bad, motorists fear that they will have to pay both the congestion and the parking charges while in the traffic jam.
Mr. Christopher Leslie (Shipley):
Given the right hon. Gentleman's interest in investment and private enterprise in London Underground and his position as chairman of Mabey Securities Ltd., will he tell us whether he is getting money into Mabey Securities via its sub-company, Mabey Construction, which is now outside the Palace of Westminster, building half of the Jubilee line?
Mr. Redwood:
I made it very clear at the beginning of the debate that I am not speaking on behalf of any business interest, and I would not waste the time of the House putting forward a business case. That is something that I do in my private time outside the House, and I am in no way inclined to use the opportunity of this debate to further any business interest that I may have, so I shall return to the subject of the debate.
We all know that taxing the motorist off the road does not work. Labour has tried it for two and a half years, and traffic has grown. It has grown because people need to move around, and as more people get jobs, so more people have to travel to work. As people want more leisure, they need to travel to cinemas, theatres, clubs and pubs, and many of those journeys cannot be undertaken by bus or train, so people go by car and pay the extra tax.
The congestion problem on our railways and roads will not be solved by legislation, but it could be eased by investment. Traffic jams will be made worse by building too many homes in the countryside. Standstill Britain needs steadfast Government to tackle the problems. Tax and spin are not man enough for the job. We need common sense and better travel facilities.
Today, an embarrassed Secretary of State will want to take attention away from his heroic failure in transport by talking of his green ambitions.
Mr. Peter Bradley (The Wrekin):
If there is to be no new housing in the countryside, where will country people live?
Mr. Redwood:
Our policy is not to say no new homes in the countryside. I shall come to the point later, so if the hon. Gentleman is patient he will benefit from listening yet again to our popular and good policy on where new development should take place.
Mr. Alan W. Williams (East Carmarthen and Dinefwr):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Redwood:
If I may answer this point, I shall then come to another point from the hon. Gentleman.
The Secretary of State will never be trusted as green or with our countryside unless he lifts the threat of the bulldozer from so many of our green fields. He has shocked the nation by his refusal to throw out the Crow report which proposes 1.1 million new homes in the south east, half of them on new greenfield sites. It is no good his saying that he has to treasure and study the report. The report is so off the wall that he should just say so and announce a better policy.
We say that in some areas where there has been a lot of pressure from development and where unemployment is low, local people and councils should have the right to regulate the amount of new house building. We are not saying that there will be no new development on greenfield sites; we are saying that there should be much less than the Secretary of State proposes, and we are identifying a local democratic way in which communities can have their say and can have an influence.
Many Labour Members think that that is a good idea and wish that their Government would propose it. I pay tribute--uncustomarily, one may think--to those Labour Members who have spoken out about their areas in the south-east where they would like building on greenfield sites. I can reassure them that, come the common-sense revolution, we shall be happy to accommodate their views. We are delighted that they wish to make a contribution. Any area that wants housing on green fields, whether a country area or not, will be welcome to have it under our plans.
Mr. Redwood:
I am sure that it is a mistake to do so, but I give way again.
Mr. Peter Bradley:
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the early 1990s, when I believe the Conservative party was still in Government, the Rural Development Commission estimated a need for 80,000 social housing units for rural communities, but only 17,700 were built? Can he explain how the common-sense revolution has introduced new policies, that were not in operation when the right hon. Gentleman was a member of the Cabinet, which will secure for the next generation of rural dwellers the affordable housing that they desperately need and which was denied them for 18 years under his Government?
Mr. Redwood:
As I have made it clear, if a local community wishes to build homes of the type that the
We are not against the provision of new homes. Many new homes will be needed, and we would like to see many more of them built in the towns and cities. For example, there is a great opportunity in the east Thames corridor which requires some strategic leadership and vision of the kind that we gave in the 1980s by starting off at the western end with the docklands development. I trust that the Secretary of State will take that as sensible advice and might even come round to that view as he studies the unfortunate Crow report.
The Secretary of State must understand that many of the people who will be seeking new homes in the next decade--there will be many such people--would like to buy modern flats and houses in towns and cities, and it is up to the Government to do a rather better job of freeing up the brownfield sites in the public sector, cleaning them up, making them available and expediting the planning permission. [Interruption.] Now we come to the history lesson. I shall not take any history lessons from the Secretary of State on urban renewal. He has only to go a few miles from Westminster to see one of the greatest urban renewal successes that the world has ever seen in the form of the massive docklands redevelopment. I am asking him to take that model, or something like it, and carry it further east and take it to the heartlands of the northern and midlands cities.
Recent studies show that unemployment is rising in the Labour heartlands in the north and the midlands. We see that the great divide is becoming worse. The Government are presiding over a disunited Britain. They are concentrating too much development in the south and are not offering enough investment and development in the north. They need to tackle that as a matter of great urgency.
Why cannot the Secretary of State make up his mind on the many good proposals in the Rogers report on urban renewal, and come to the House to make a full statement and be cross-examined on them? Why does he not launch a blitz on brownfield sites to bring them back into use? He cannot be serious about people using public transport more if he presses on with plans to locate over 1 million people on greenfield sites in the south-east without proper access to trains and buses. Let us not pretend: those people will not have proper access to trains and buses if that kind of suburban development is encouraged. Greenfield development clearly favours using the car and the already-congested motorways.
The Secretary of State's biggest embarrassment must be the Government's decision to sell a chunk of National Air Traffic Services. Before the election, the now Chief Secretary told everyone that our air was not for sale. Many Labour candidates and Back Benchers believed him, as did many members of NATS staff. Unfortunately, it turned out to be another great Labour lie. The policy will be deeply unpopular, and I strongly object to the way in which the Secretary of State proposes to go about it.
Instead of selling 100 per cent. to a wide range of British shareholders--giving existing managers and employees a real stake and a real say in their business--
the Secretary of State intends to sell around half, surrendering control to a single trade buyer, which could be a foreign company. He will be willing to sell control of our airways at less than half a fair price--perhaps to a foreign interest. The taxpayer will be robbed, and the national interest may not be looked after properly. NATS needs massive new investment. It does not need a foreign owner buying it on the cheap to make a quick buck. Will the Secretary of State confirm today that these contentious matters will be covered by primary legislation? Will he promise not to guillotine or stifle debate on this most sensitive subject?
I appreciate that many Labour Members who oppose this part of the Bill want a different future for NATS from the one that the Opposition would like. I would never embarrass them by suggesting that we agree on what we would like to see in place of the present system. We do not agree on that, but we have a strong common interest in voting down this miserable proposal from the Government. Many decent Labour Members and the Opposition agree that the proposal is wrong for the staff of NATS, wrong for the taxpayer and wrong for Britain. I urge the Government to think again before they get into a mess on the Floor of the House with the Bill.
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