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Mr. Tim Yeo (South Suffolk) (Con): I am grateful to the Secretary of State for a copy of the White Paper and of the statement, which he made available earlier this morning. I welcome his recognition that a growing economy means that people want to travel more and that measures to enable people and goods to move around must be consistent with our environmental objectives. I particularly welcome the reference in the White Paper to the use of new technology to promote cleaner vehicles and fuels. We will want to examine that matter and in due course to debate it.

However, after seven years of Labour Government, motorists and train users do not have much to be grateful about. On the roads, congestion has got worse, even though motorists are paying an extra £10 billion a year in taxes compared with 1997. As the RAC points out, out of a total of £40 billion raised every year in motoring taxes, only about £6 billion is spent on the roads. On the railways, reliability has got worse and fares have risen faster than inflation. The 10-year transport plan, launched with such a fanfare four years ago by the Deputy Prime Minister, has been a disastrous failure.

Let us judge the Government's performance by their own standards and look at some of the key targets that they set out in the 10-year plan. According to the plan, by 2010 congestion on our roads was to be reduced. In practice, it has got worse. According to the plan, trains were to be made more punctual. In practice, they have become less punctual. According to the plan, rail passengers were to increase by 50 per cent. That target cannot now be met. According to the plan, bus travel throughout England was to grow by 10 per cent. In practice, outside London, it is static. According to the Secretary of State's own update of the plan just two years ago, the Strategic Rail Authority was to provide firm leadership, strategic direction and funding for the rail industry. In practice, it has been abolished.

According to the plan, the maintenance backlog on local roads was to be eliminated. [Interruption.] In practice, that target is being dropped. According to the plan, Thameslink and the East London line were to be built by 2010. In practice, those target dates cannot possibly be met. According to the plan, rail freight was to increase by 80 per cent. In practice, in 2002 rail freight fell. [Hon. Members: "Boring."] According to the plan, passengers were to travel by train more quickly and comfortably. In practice, overcrowding is bad, it has reached chronic proportions and it is likely to get worse. Not surprisingly, complaints have more than doubled.

According to the plan, the east coast main line was to be modernised and capacity was to be increased. In practice, that scheme has been put on ice. According to the plan, local roads were to be improved. In practice, the Freight Transport Association reports that their condition is worse than a decade ago. [Interruption.]
 
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Not one of those failures received a mention from the Secretary of State but they are the issues that concern daily road users, railway users and freight customers. [Interruption.] The consequence of those failures, to which he is so reluctant to own up, is an economy whose competitiveness is weakened every day. According to the CBI, transport congestion now costs British industry more than £15 billion a year. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the shadow Secretary of State but may I say that he should be given the same attention as the Secretary of State and should be heard?

Mr. Yeo: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The truth is that neither the Secretary of State nor Labour Back Benchers want to hear the truth about Labour's failures on transport.

Britain has less than half the European Union average provision of motorways per head of population and a lower motorway density than any of our major European competitors. In Britain, the proportion of road links that are congested for more than one hour a day is three times greater than in Germany and five times greater than in France.

Absolutely nothing in the statement suggests that the Government plan any specific new steps beyond what they have already announced to tackle any of the problems that I have mentioned. Their failure to do so is rapidly turning the challenge to which the Secretary of State referred into a full-scale crisis. The truth is that motorists who face jams today will face them tomorrow and for the foreseeable future, even if, unlike all those previous promises, the promises in the White Paper are kept.

Why do not the Government recognise that charging for road use is acceptable, but only if the money raised is used exclusively to pay for environmentally acceptable road improvements or increases in capacity, or to cut other motoring taxes? [Interruption.] Simply extracting more tax from drivers without any guarantee that those conditions will be met would be wrong.

Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) (Lab/Co-op): Where is the question?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I say once to the right hon. Gentleman that I expect him now to maintain silence from a sedentary position. He cannot go on interrupting the hon. Gentleman; otherwise, we shall be better off without his presence.

Mr. Yeo: Even if the right hon. Gentleman does not intervene, we will be better off without his presence.

The timid nature of the Government's approach—launching a debate instead of taking a decision—will dismay road users and environmentalists alike. On local congestion schemes, do the Government realise that improvements in public transport should precede and not follow the introduction of local road pricing? What assurance can the Secretary of State give about the use to which money that may be raised by local councils through local congestion charging schemes will be put?

On spending, to which the Secretary of State is so addicted, does he realise that much of the investment that is needed to improve our transport system will come
 
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from the private sector, regardless of who is in power? Therefore, one key judgment on his White Paper is whether it promotes private investment. Will he say whether giving Ken Livingstone power over train services in London—two out of three rail journeys begin or end in London—will make it more or less likely that private investors will want to invest in the railway industry?

How will the new transport fund that the Secretary of State mentioned reduce congestion in towns and cities? Will it deal with the problem of road maintenance, a huge issue that I did not hear him mention at all? Will he admit that delaying repairs and maintenance on roads increases the need for complete rebuilding of many roads? When does he believe that the backlog of maintenance work will be addressed?

On Crossrail, will the Secretary of State confirm that after today, we are no nearer a firm date for completion of this project and that suggestions that it would be completed in time for the London Olympic games in 2012 are complete nonsense? Will he confirm that his failure to introduce the lorry road user charge means that Britain's hauliers will remain at a competitive disadvantage in relation to their foreign counterparts for several more years?

Given the fact that almost every promise made in the document published four years ago has now been broken and that almost every target has been missed, there can be little confidence that a fresh set of promises in this new document will be kept. Instead of a vision for our transport system, we are offered a muddle. Instead of decisions, we are offered debates. After seven years of Labour government, Britain has a transport system that inconveniences millions of travellers every day and burdens businesses with delays and costs that undermine our competitive position. Sadly, after today's statement, that inconvenience and those delays and costs are set to continue for years to come. Only the election of a Conservative Government will address our transport needs.

Mr. Darling: Well, I admire the hon. Gentleman's sense of humour, at least in relation to the last point. I am glad that he recognises the overall objectives and agrees with them; it is just a shame that where we differ to a great extent is on providing the means to achieve them. If one is committed, as he is, to cutting £2 billion from transport, many of the problems that he complains about will be compounded, not sorted out.

Let me go through the points that the hon. Gentleman raised. He complained that we were not spending enough on roads. He will recall that, in the early 1990s, the then Conservative Government, of whom he was a member, announced a very ambitious road programme. The only problem was that it completely collapsed by 1996, because of the economic problems that they ran into. We are spending 43 per cent. more on roads than in 1997, and the road programme that we have put in place will make a difference.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned railways. He well knows that one of the biggest impediments to rail reliability was the lack of investment. Again, investment virtually dried up prior to privatisation. Less than 200 miles of track was being maintained thanks to the then Conservative Government. Privatisation also created a
 
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chaotic system of organisation that affected reliability. Both those things, investment and organisation, are being put right.

The hon. Gentleman had the gall to say that fares were going up. Is that another spending commitment? If fares are going to come down, the money has to be found somewhere. It is awfully difficult to see how it can be found if one is cutting £2 billion from transport spending.

As for this nonsense about private investment and the Mayor, the Mayor is getting very limited influence over what is happening in London, which is mainly directed towards rationalising the fare structure. From the conversations that I have had with the rail companies, which I speak to regularly, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that they were very happy with what I announced last week and saw that it was far more sensible than what the Conservatives had left.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned bus travel, which is increasing outside London, where, as I told the House earlier, good councils and bus companies are working together. The proposals that I have announced today—I suspect that Labour Members will want to draw me out on them rather more than Opposition Members do—with regard to limited franchising are a welcome reform and a good step forward.

Crossrail was never going to be ready for the Olympics. I have said that countless times in the House.

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