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Chris Grayling: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Darling: I will do so in a moment, because the hon. Gentleman has been patient listening to my insults and criticisms.
I hope that, at some point, the House will have a good opportunity to discuss road pricing, and perhaps we should arrange that. When I look ahead 20 years, I cannot see how we will deal with the congestion that we will face in this country unless we all agree on that approach. At some point in the future, Governments will change, and if we want such a long-term change to take place, we need a common approach. That is not to say that there are not difficult choices to be made and questions to be answered, but that is why we cannot leap into this tomorrow morning. It is probably one of the biggest transport issues that we face, however, and we need to make progress now.
Chris Grayling: I look forward with interest to hearing more about the Secretary of State's proposals and plans for a pilot scheme. We will examine that pilot scheme carefully, and he will find that we do so with a sceptical eye, as he would expect, as that is our job. He has talked about rural buses. Is he prepared to put on the record a commitment to rural railways, too, given the statement and the changed guidelines published last week? Is he prepared to commit to retaining intact the current rail network for the foreseeable future?
Mr. Darling: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's first point. I hope that he will engage with us constructively. I am happy for that to happen, formally or informally. As for the railways, what we published last Thursday were revised guidelines that were necessary following the abolition of the Strategic Rail Authority. In the introduction, I explained that while an increasing number of people were using the railways and I wanted that to continue, clearer guidelines were needed.
I have said time and again that I am happy to support rural railway lines. The community development partnerships that we announced a couple of years ago are designed to give lines that are in the last chance saloon a chance to continue, and they have been quite successful. It beggars belief that we should reach a point at which no one is using a train or a station, and say that nothing can ever be done about it.
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The story in The Independent—I looked no further than the author's name before returning the newspaper to the shelf—was a complete exaggeration, but that is what he does, and we just have to live with it. I am pretty confident about the prospects for the railways, but to say that no network or service can ever change cannot be the right approach.
The hon. Gentleman did not mention the fact that road pricing is a big challenge for us. Congestion is a challenge, but so is the environment, given the pollution caused by any form of transport. The European Union emissions trading scheme is advancing, mainly because of pressure from us and from other countries. We need to consider additional trading schemes. I announced a renewable transport fuel obligation of 5 per cent. last November, and we have made changes to vehicle taxation to encourage more environmentally friendly cars. The Mayor of London was able to announce a low emission zone yesterday, thanks to legislation introduced by us.
Those are all important developments and we should not forget about them, but many other things could be done at the same time. I understand from his press release that the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington intends to refer to that as well, and I am with him to that extent. We and the Liberal Democrats may agree on the ends; the difference between us relates to the means. The Liberal Democrats are rather slow in coming forward in that regard.
I welcome the debate. I am sorry that we do not yet know what the Conservative party policy is, but we do know, thanks to the right hon. Member for Wokingham, what the process is, and at least three people are contributing to it. There could be three policies at the end of that, but so much the better. We in the Labour party believe in choice.
I commend the amendment to the House.
5.22 pm
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): Members can imagine how the suspense has built up in the last few months over the Conservative transport policy. We have been given tantalising glimpses of elusive education policies, veils have been lifted and swiftly dropped on law-and-order proposals, and health policies have been dangled before us and then whipped away.
As the Secretary of State said, today's debate should have provided an opportunity for the Conservative spokesman to parade, in all its splendour, his party's position on transport, and to reconcile the views of his party's leader with those of the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer). I shall not repeat the quotations that the Secretary of State has already put on record, but he could also have quoted the Chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee, the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth). When the Highways Agency invited tenders for the widening to four lanes the remaining three sections of the M25, he said:
"When the Heathrow section of the M25 was widened, I warned that the work would cause massive short-term disruption with no long-term benefit, since traffic volume would simply increase to fill the new capacity. Regrettably, this has turned out to be true.
I fear the same will be the case for this new contract; all the evidence is that when you increase road capacity, traffic simply grows to fill it."
The Secretary of State could have quoted those words from the hon. Member for East Surrey—who is not here today—and encouraged the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) to try to reconcile those views. In fact, the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell could have tried to reconcile the views of the leader of his party with those of the then hon. Member for Witney.
Mr. Redwood: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would stop spreading odd comments about Conservative policy that are not true, and tell us about the Liberal Democrats' policies. Is he one of those who believe that they should clobber the car in urban areas and then say that they would not do it in rural areas, and explain how the two can be kept separate? Can he also tell us what are the differences between the three contenders for the leadership of his own little party on transport matters? I believe that they disagree wildly.
Tom Brake: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention and leave it to him to highlight odd policies. I will come to Liberal Democrat policies at the end of my speech.
The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell could have tried to reconcile the views of the leader of his party with those that the latter held when he was just an ordinary Member of Parliament. The Secretary of State quoted the right hon. Member for Witney as stating on 8 November that Britain now needs a concerted programme of road building. In a speech to the Renewable Energy Association on 1 December, the right hon. Member for Witney said that
"climate change is one of the three greatest challenges facing mankind today . . . Our carbon emissions have increased in five of the seven years from 1997 to 2004 . . . We're now on a track which, without a significant change of course, will lead to an increase, not a reduction, in carbon emissions in this country."
It is clear that he wants both to build new roads and to reduce man-made greenhouse gas emissions, but the Department for Transport's own figures show that that is not possible. Unfortunately, new roads equal more traffic, which equals more emissions. The figures also show that just under 25 per cent. more traffic is going to be generated by road-building schemes—and that is just by those schemes for which the Department can actually provide figures. Of course, we cannot be absolutely certain about the projected traffic increase, because figures exist for only 36 per cent. of the Department for Transport's schemes. Moreover, data on the increase in carbon dioxide emissions resulting from road-building schemes exist for fewer than half such schemes.
It is also hard to reconcile the leader of the Conservative party's enthusiasm for confronting climate change, to which he referred in today's Prime Minister's questions, with the practice of Tory councils. I have some good examples. Barnet is well known for removing cycle lanes. In Bath, the Tory council tried to scrap a bus gate that allows buses easier access to the city centre. In Hampshire, the council voted last year to scrap funding for 18 bus routes and reduced funding for a further eight. [Interruption.] I hear cries of, "Excellent!" from the Conservative Front Bench—perhaps it was from the Back Benches; I am not sure which—but the official Opposition adopt many such transport policies.
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In West Berkshire, the Tory council slashed the highways capital budget, which meant less funding for cycle lanes. West Berkshire previously won an award for the most improved highway authority in England in respect of implementing measures to increase cycling. In Oxfordshire, plans have been shelved indefinitely to link a number of outlying villages to Abingdon. That is the record and I am afraid that it does not sit comfortably with the Conservative leader's recent pronouncements.
I should not dwell for too long on Tory policies, but I should point out that their quality of life commission is right to seek to reconcile the irreconcilable.
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