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Mr. Forth: It is also the case that clause 17, which is also referred to in clause 20 now under consideration, refers teasingly in subsection (4)(a) to the fact that the traffic manager, which is now also being imposed on the local authority, must
"identify things (including future occurrences)".
Apparently, we now expect the as yet unappointed bureaucrat to have the gift of foresight in order to fulfil his duties to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State. Does my hon. Friend think that that is at all reasonable?
Mr. Green: I agree that it seems unreasonable. It would seem unreasonable were the traffic manager to be appointed by a democratically elected local body, which is more likely to have some kind of gift of foresight as to what its area might want in the time ahead. It is markedly less likely, however, that a central functionary appointed at the whim of and to serve the interests of a Secretary of State in a distant Department will have the sensitivity to anticipate what people might want in terms of their traffic management. That is asking the impossible, and that is what the Bill appears to do.
I have always thought, and have said at various stages of the Bill's passage, that this is an inadequate means of achieving the desirable end of less congestion, but what is particularly unhelpful is that the clauses the Government seek to reintroduce are genuinely damaging. They will contribute nothing to the Bill's underlying aim, while also proving dangerous to the idea of local democracy. The Government are wrong, and their lordships were right to remove the clauses. I urge the House to agree with their lordships, to disagree with the Government, and to keep these damaging clauses out of the Bill.
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John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD): When the Bill was published, the Minister was kind enough to arrange for officials to brief me and other Opposition Members on its contents. That was very helpful. One of the issues that I raised then was the whole question of traffic directors. This problem has existed throughout the Bill's passage, and I mentioned it on Second Reading and in Committee. As the Liberal Democrats consider much of the Bill beneficial, I offered the Government an alternative in a spirit of co-operation, but they seem to have been curiously intransigent. In the other place, having tried a variety of options, their lordships decided that, on principle, the clauses should be removed.
I believe that their lordships made the right decision, but—again in a spirit of wishing to offer the Minister something—I suggest that the Government could table amendments. They could adopt the proposal that I made in Committee—or, to be exact, a workable version of it, as my proposal was not entirely workable—or, as suggested by the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green),
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they could draw up criteria for the intervention. It is difficult to accept draconian powers of intervention with no explanation of what they would consist of and when they would be triggered. I know that the Minister is a reasonable man, and I know that he dislikes Draco. I hope that he will consider my suggestion.
As I said in Committee, it seems to me that there are only two circumstances in which the Government might wish to intervene. One is when a local authority has simply failed to appoint a traffic director; the other is when a traffic manager has been appointed and fails to deliver to the Government's satisfaction. Surely there is a straightforward remedy in both cases. In the first case, it is simply to insist that a traffic manager be appointed. In the second, it is to reserve to the Secretary of State a power to remove a traffic manager who has been seen to fail, and make another appointment. That simple method of intervention would leave most of the clauses that have gone out, but would retain some power of intervention. As I said on that occasion, I accept that there may be times at which the Government need to intervene, and my proposal would provide a mechanism.
A very germane point has been made about finance. It is extraordinary that a local authority that must finance a traffic manager and associated requirements through its council tax payers should—if the Government choose to impose a traffic director—also have to pay for the full panoply of staff, offices and all the other accoutrements. That is surely an unnecessary burden to place on local people, particularly when there is nothing they can do at the ballot box.
I genuinely consider the Minister a reasonable man. Given the maths of this House, I am sure that it will vote with the Government, but I hope that, when this provision goes back to their lordships' House, the Government will seriously consider not forcing them to insist. They could avoid that outcome by tabling amendments that would produce the result that I suggested or that would define the relevant criteria.
Mr. Damian Green: In the light of the burst of reasonableness that we are expecting from the Minister, the hon. Gentleman could suggest that he establish some criteria when the Reasons Committee is set up, so that it can judge them. That would be an improvement on the current situation, whereby we are simply being asked to take it on trust that the Government will provide reasonable criteria. They have had many weeks in which to come up with such criteria, and it seems strange that the House is being asked to make a decision without knowing what they are. The Reasons Committee is another means by which the Government could deal with this issue.
John Thurso: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. I believe that there is a way forward for the Government that would give them what they require, and which would be acceptable to their lordships. I urge the Minister to demonstrate that burst of reasonableness.
Mr. Forth:
We are being invited to discuss an unusually wide range of amendments; indeed, I hardly
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know where to start, but I shall do my best. The general point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Green)—the relationship between central and local government—is what this is all about. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso)—we used affectionately to describe his predecessor as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Island; we thought that funny but he never did—used an interesting phrase. He spoke of the satisfaction of the Government with what the local traffic manager is getting up to, but given his party's devotion to devolution, I would have expected him to speak of the satisfaction of the voters. We have traffic problems in my borough of Bromley, and to my simple mind it should properly be for local voters to judge whether their local councillors and officers are dealing adequately with such problems. I doubt whether anybody in Bromley would be very satisfied to learn that the Secretary of State—or even worse, the Mayor of London—was to look after Bromley's traffic. I shall come back to the Mayor in a moment, because sadly, he is mentioned in these provisions and I cannot imagine why.
The first point that we must confront in considering these provisions is our view as individuals and as a House of Commons of the proper relationship between central and local government.
Mr. Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con): Potentially, this issue goes wider still. I represent an area on which, to my misfortune, the Government are seeking to impose regional assemblies. How would the views of regional assemblies be taken into account?
Mr. Forth: I do not possess my right hon. Friend's intimate knowledge of the Bill, but my glance through it has so far found no reference to regional authorities of any kind, so I assume, given the Government's enthusiasm for elected regional authorities, that there is no role for them in this matter. Presumably, even regional elected representatives would have no role to play in traffic management; yet again, it is the Secretary of State who will decide on such matters, be it road humps or anything else.
We are in an absurd position. All the main political parties now pay lip service to the idea of local decision making—devolution, decentralisation, call it what one will—yet the Bill contains a perfect example of central Government's belief that they invariably know what is best for local areas, and so will seek to intervene. We already have central government control over the national motorway network, which is long established. Going several steps further to say that the Secretary of State is so omniscient that he will know what is required authority by authority, street by street, is patently absurd.
I will not dwell excessively on clauses 16 and 17, except to point out that they are referred to explicitly in clause 20, which means that there is at least an opportunity to touch upon them. In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford, I pointed out what appeared to be a helpful reference to the "expeditious movement of traffic" as a criterion for judging whether the local traffic authority was carrying out its duties satisfactorily. However, the phrase is very subjective and, sadly, there is little or no help in clause 16.
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I looked in vain to see whether clause 17 provided further guidance and came across an interesting phrase. The clause starts by saying:
"A local traffic authority shall make such arrangements as they consider appropriate for planning and carrying out the action to be taken in performing the network management duty."
That is the very thing the Secretary of State will use to judge the performance of the local traffic authority.
"The arrangements must include provision for establishing processes for ensuring (so far as may be reasonably practicable)
"that the authority . . . identify things (including future occurrences) which are causing, or which have the potential to cause, road congestion or other disruption".
We are now requiring the local traffic authority to have the ability to gaze into a crystal ball and forecast sufficiently accurately what will happen in the future to avoid traffic congestion. I would have thought it demanding enough to deal with existing traffic congestion, but to use as a criterion one's ability to forecast the future gets us into difficult territory.
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