The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
Chairman:
Mr.
Martyn
Jones
†
Cairns,
David
(Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern
Ireland)
Cox,
Mr. Geoffrey
(Torridge and West Devon)
(Con)
Crabb,
Mr. Stephen
(Preseli Pembrokeshire)
(Con)
†
David,
Mr. Wayne
(Caerphilly)
(Lab)
†
Dorries,
Mrs. Nadine
(Mid-Bedfordshire)
(Con)
†
Duddridge,
James
(Rochford and Southend, East)
(Con)
†
Foster,
Mr. Michael
(Worcester)
(Lab)
†
Kaufman,
Sir Gerald
(Manchester, Gorton)
(Lab)
†
Kidney,
Mr. David
(Stafford)
(Lab)
Lancaster,
Mr. Mark
(North-East Milton Keynes)
(Con)
McDonnell,
Dr. Alasdair
(Belfast, South)
(SDLP)
†
Naysmith,
Dr. Doug
(Bristol, North-West)
(Lab/Co-op)
†
Norris,
Dan
(Wansdyke)
(Lab)
†
Reid,
Mr. Alan
(Argyll and Bute)
(LD)
†
Robertson,
Mr. Laurence
(Tewkesbury)
(Con)
†
Ruddock,
Joan
(Lewisham, Deptford)
(Lab)
†
Strang,
Dr. Gavin
(Edinburgh, East)
(Lab)
†
Thornberry,
Emily
(Islington, South and Finsbury)
(Lab)
†
Wills,
Mr. Michael
(North Swindon)
(Lab)
†
Wilson,
Sammy
(East Antrim)
(DUP)
†
Wright,
David
(Telford)
(Lab)
Glenn
McKee, Committee
Clerk
†
attended the
Committee
The
following also attended, pursuant to Standing Order No.
118(2):
Durkan,
Mark
(Foyle) (SDLP)
Third
Delegated Legislation
Committee
Tuesday 9
January
2007
[Mr.
Martyn Jones
in the
Chair]
Draft Street Works (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 2007
4.30
pm
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (David
Cairns):
I beg to move,
That the Committee has
considered the draft Street Works (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order
2007.
I welcome you to
the Chair, Mr. Jones; it is a pleasure to serve under your
chairmanship. Before moving on to the substance of the order, a draft
of which was laid before the House on 4 December 2006, I shall deal
with an issue that often comes up on such occasions—the question
of process. It is my and the Government’s sincere hope that this
is the beginning of the last batch of Orders in Council that deal with
what should be devolved matters for Northern Ireland to be considered
by such a Committee.
We now have a clear timetable
leading up to the elections in a few weeks’ time and the
restoration ofthe Assembly on 26 March, after which all such
issues will properly and rightly pass to elected Ministers
inthe Assembly. The order sets out a framework of
regulation-making powers—powers to be exercisednot by
me, but by Ministers in the devolved Administration. We are not doing
anything today that cannot be undone in a few weeks’ time by
Ministers of the Executive, and nothing in the order will fetter them
in future. I accept that there remains continued unease that we are
still making Orders in Council for devolved business, but this one is
relatively uncontroversial, although important, and its format is such
that itwill enable local Executive Ministers to exercise
functions and powers after the Assembly is restored on 26
March.
I shall
briefly describe the purpose of the order. It introduces stronger
powers for the management and control of streetworks, with the aim of
minimising disruption and reducing traffic congestion. I am sure that
all members of the Committee will agree that streetworks can be a
highly frustrating source of disruption for road users, although not
the only one, and that they contribute to traffic congestion. Indeed,
in 2001, my Department was criticised by the Public Accounts Committee
of the Northern Ireland Assembly, which believed that significant
disruption to traffic had resulted from a failure to introduce the
streetworks legislation in Northern Ireland that then applied in
England and Wales.
The order introduces provisions
largely in line with those already applicable in England and Wales by
the enactment of parts 3 and 4 of the Traffic Management Act
2004.
Sammy
Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP): The Minister says that the
legislation is largely in line with that for England and Wales. Does he
accept that, although local authorities, highway authorities and so on
in England and Wales are covered by the legislation, they are the main
groups who disrupt road traffic through roadworks? That that is not the
case under the order. In fact, the order covers only a small group of
those who will be digging up our roads.
David
Cairns:
There is a difference, which is why I did not say
that the order mirrored the provisions for England and Wales or was
identical to them. The key difference is that local authorities in
Northern Ireland have no road functions. Such things are done centrally
through my Department. Part of the review of public administration is
about devolving responsibility for local roads—the vast majority
of the network—to local authorities, and we are working through
that process with the political parties by using the strategic
leadership board that I chair. The board will consider exactly what
functions should be transferred to the seven new councils when they
come to power in 2009. It would not be appropriate for us to mirror
exactly the provisions for England and Wales, because roads are not
devolved to local authorities in Northern Ireland. They will have such
powers, however, but we will deal with that when we transfer the
functions.
The hon.
Gentleman was right to suggest that the Roads Service is not covered by
the legislation. That is why I said earlier that work done by the
utilities contributes to congestion but is not entirely responsible for
it. Given the legislative framework that we have in Northern Ireland,
separate pieces of legislation govern what we call streetworks, which
we are discussing today, and what are referred to as roadworks, which
are carried out by the Roads Service. We considered the possibility of
combining in an order an approach that would satisfy what the hon.
Gentleman set out to do, but we were advised that that would not have
been legislatively possible, or that it would have been more difficult
or complex because the pieces of legislation are separate. That is not
to say that we rule out the possibility of introducing reforms to the
way in which roadworks are carried out, but that would have to be done
by a different piece of legislation.
James
Duddridge (Rochford and Southend, East) (Con): The
Minister will be aware that he has received a letter from Peter Dixon
of Phoenix Natural Gas. The Minister has stated that the order is much
to do with congestion, but that letter and the supporting
notes—I believe that they have been sent to all members of the
Committee—state that utility roadworks account for only a
maximum 5 per cent. of total congestion in Northern Ireland. If so,
will the order do anything significant to sort road
congestion?
David
Cairns:
It will. We are not saying that we will reduce the
amount of works that utilities have to carry out. They are statutory
undertakers that have to carry out works, and they need to be allowed
access to do so. We are talking about managing and co-ordinating that
better, so that the same road is not continually dug up over and again
and so that the same traffic routes are not continually disrupted. We
are not saying that we
will at a stroke do away with congestion and
disruption, but asking whether we can streamline it, manage it and do
so in a way that is much more co-ordinated.
I agree with some of
Mr. Dixon’s concerns, although not with all of
them—he cites a figure for the cost to the industry that is not
evidenced elsewhere in his letter. Ultimately, the codes of practice,
the regulations, the costs and the permit scheme are not included in
the order, but the powers to make them happen are. It will be for the
Executive Ministers in the Assembly to make them happen in consultation
with Peter Dixon, the National Joint Utilities Group, those utilities
that are not in the group and other road users. The Assembly and its
Ministers will decide on the charging scheme, how the permit scheme
will work and so on. I do not think that we need to get too worked up
about that. There is a long way to go, and we can have a common-sense
approach.
Mr.
Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD): In their statement, the
private utility firms express concern that the publicly owned Water
Service will not be included in the order. Are they correct to say that
and, if so, will the Minister explain why he has not included the
publicly owned utilities in the same order as the privately owned
ones?
David
Cairns:
No, they are wrong; the Water Service will be
included. That is one of the issues in Peter Dixon’s letter to
which I could have taken exception. The Water Service will be dealt
with in exactly the same way as the private utilities.
Among the provisions in the
order is the power to introduce a scheme to require utilities to obtain
permits to carry out streetworks, to which conditions may be attached.
The permit could, for example, ensure that the time estimated as being
needed to do the work was allocated sensibly, so that roads were not
blocked for weeks on end without anything actually happening. It could
also require that only one lane of a road would be dealt with at a
time. In other words, a permit could set out terms and conditions to
ensure that the work is managed with the minimum of
disruption.
We
propose, too, that street authorities will have direction-making powers
to enable them to direct utilities about the dates, as well as the
times, at which they may carry out works. For example, it could be
specified that work could be done at the weekends as well as at times
of day when it would cause less disruption, rather than during the rush
hour.
Other new
measures include a requirement for utilities, in certain circumstances,
to resurface entire lane widths or to contribute to costs in carrying
out such work, which would avoid the patchwork-quilt effect that
blights so many of our roads; a restriction on certain streetworks for
a prescribed period following the completion of substantial
streetworks, so that the same road is not dug up over and again;
increases in the maximum fines for certain offences and the creation of
a range of fixed penalty offences; and a charging mechanism by which
utilities would pay for the duration of their occupation of a road and
for overrunning any agreed period of
occupation.
Sammy
Wilson:
Can the Minister outline the circumstances in
which full reinstatement will be required and the circumstances in
which refusals will be
given to reopen a road after it has been resurfaced? For example, if
repairs were needed to a telephone cable and the road had just been
resurfaced, would a permit be
denied?
David
Cairns:
On the first point, as I said a moment or two ago,
if a road is continually being dug up—we have all seen roads
where roadworks have resulted in an unsightly patchwork
effect—we could require the resurfacing of a lane. The utility
that happened to dig up the road last would not necessarily get
clobbered with the costs of resurfacing the entire lane. We would have
to consider cost-sharing schemes, and that is precisely the sort of
thing that would be dealt with in the code of practice and the pricing
schemes that will be set out by regulation following the
order.
Obviously,
emergency works—for example, in relation to gas
leaks—must be undertaken, and we must take a common-sense
approach to them. It would be unnecessarily bureaucratic and cumbersome
to state that each set of roadworks on every road in Northern Ireland
will need a permit. I do not think that work being done to a wee
country lane in Fermanagh would be dealt with in anything like the same
way as works being done on a major arterial route such as the Malone
road in Belfast. Not every roadwork would need a permit. We are talking
about routine maintenance-type work that can and should be planned in
advance and that can be co-ordinated centrally, so that the Department,
in this instance, which already has a centralised database and
register, can keep a co-ordinating eye on what is going
on.
By and large, the
public support and welcome these proposals, although, as has been
mentioned, utility companies are not supportive of all the proposed
measures—perhaps unsurprisingly—but I stress that we
recognise that the utilities are essential for the economic and social
well-being of Northern Ireland. Of course, they have a duty to
undertake repairs to and carry out maintenance on the pipes, cables and
so on that we all need for the services that we enjoy.
We want to provide a better
system for regulating the way in which roads are dug up and the number
of times that that can happen, and the order enables us to do that. Our
officials and the utility companies already work well together in
co-ordinating streetworks. We can build on that, as well as building on
the experience of England and Wales—which are a bit ahead of
Northern Ireland in relation to the making of the necessary
regulations—so that we can put in a system that is fair not only
to the people who use the services and the utility companies, but to
road users, who often face a great deal of
disruption.
I am
confident that the proposed new powers for the better management,
control and co-ordination of streetworks will help to minimise
disruption and reduce congestion on the roads and streets of Northern
Ireland.
4.43
pm
Mr.
Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con): I welcome you to
the Chair, Mr. Jones. I wish you and, indeed, the entire
Committee a happy new year. It is wonderful to be back here, even
though, as the Minister says, this might be one of the last
times—I
hope that it is—that we consider Northern Ireland legislation in
a Statutory Instrument Committee. I am tempted to say that I will
believe it when I see it, but I hope that it is the case. Having just
returned from a brief visit to the middle east, I hope that, in
Northern Ireland at least, we can move things forward to a situation in
which there is a lasting peace and the people can determine their own
rules and regulations. Never has it been more the case than in this
Statutory Instrument Committee and the business thereof that people
should be deciding the matters under discussion in Northern Ireland,
not here in London. As I have said before, with the best will in the
world, and as frequently as I visit Northern Ireland, I cannot pretend
to have the same knowledge as people who live in the Province, so I
share the Minister’s hope with regard to progress that we might
make in that
regard.
We have all
been frustrated on many occasions at roads being dug up continually
and, as it sometimes seems, unnecessarily, so any move that we can make
towards reducing the disruption must be welcome. We have all been
frustrated sitting in traffic queues, which again we may feel are
unnecessary.
It
is right that, if utilities have the statutory powers that allow them
to dig up the road, they at least have the responsibility to make as
little disruption as possible.
I do not intend to speak for
very long, but I have one or two concerns about the order. I have read
about it and consulted the National Joint Utilities Group and others
who, it is fair to say, take the view that, yes, this legislation in
some ways matches what has happened in England, but it also seems to
take the worst and the best bits of that. Indeed, the measure includes
some aspects that have been tried and failed in this country and takes
them across the Irish sea to be applied in Northern Ireland.
One issue of concern is that in
Scotland, for example, there is a roadworks commissioner and there are
traffic managers. However, that will apparently not be the case in
Northern Ireland—I think I am correct in that. The Minister
shakes his head, so perhaps my information is wrong. If I am wrong,
that will be of comfort to people who are concerned about the issue.
Perhaps the Minister will correct me, but it has been suggested that
there will not be the type of supervision that some people believe is
necessary.
Another
concern is that, although the order is being sold as something that
will reduce congestion, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and
Southend, East has said, it probably relates to only a small part of
the congestion that will be caused by the utilities. How much progress
will we actually make in respect of congestion? Has congestion been
measured? Can we measure it now and can we measure it in five
years’ time? In other words, can we judge the progress that we
make and the effectiveness of such
legislation?
The
consultation process is a dangerous issue to raise, as the Government
always say that there has been a very full consultation, but it is felt
by the relevant parties that possibly their representations have not
been fully listened to—particularly in relation to the knock-on
costs and the possible benefits that may come from the order. The
Minister half referred to an
article—I do not know whether or not it was accurate—in
The Irish News on 21 December claiming that the new rules
regarding utility
companies
“could cost
Northern Ireland’s gas and electricity customers up to
£15 million a
year”,
because of the
knock-on costs and the utilities passing on the costs to customers.
That is of particular concern in Northern Ireland, where people pay
more for their utilities than in Great Britain. I do not know whether
that figure is accurate, but it is what has been reported, and perhaps
the Minister will address that point.
The cost to the utilities is a
big issue. As already suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for East
Antrim, the Minister has responded to the question of multi-trenching.
However, exactly when the whole road should be resurfaced is of
concern. Who judges how much should be disrupted to make someone liable
to resurface the whole road? That is one of the concerns. Do the people
who will do the resurfacing come under the scope of the order? It has
been claimed that they do not, yet that could hold up the whole job. Is
clarification of that not something that is unfortunately missing from
the order?
On the
principle of overruns, as has been claimed, companies in England can be
fined up to £2,000 at present. However, that rarely happens
because they are able to set themselves long periods in which to
complete work and exploit loopholes to overrun the deadlines. In other
words, knowing that a job will take one week, they can agree that it
should take three weeks, and if it only takes two weeks, everyone is
happy. However, the legislation has not dealt with that
issue.
It is also
claimed that utilities exploit emergency powers; they can claim
something is an emergency when perhaps it is not, so they do not
necessarily need to give the proper notice, as they would if they had
gone through the normal
procedure.
I
understand what the Government are trying to achieve, and I hope that
the measure will be successful, but I should like the Minister to
address those points when he winds
up.
4.50
pm
Mark
Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP): Thank you, Mr. Jones. I
appreciate your generosity in allowing me to contribute. My hon. Friend
the Member for Belfast, South was listed to serve on the
Committee—I had been listed previously—but other business
prevents him from being
here.
The Minister
emphasised in his opening remarks the need to address the problems of
congestion, which has caused frustration and comment. He referred in
particular to views that were expressed in the Assembly in 2001 about
the impact of streetworks. He obviously was not in Northern Ireland at
that time or in the preceding years and may not appreciate that many of
those problems were caused by the great deal of work that had been done
in Belfast in respect of the natural gas supply. A great deal of work
had also been done by Cabletel and others. It was a period when there
was much more disruption because of significant strategic supply work
in parts of the street network of Belfast,
not the road network of Northern Ireland, although obviously there would
have been issues in some other towns as
well.
The conditions
that might have given rise to anecdotal impressions that bedlam was
being caused by all sorts of utility companies opening up roads and
doing nothing, or taking a very long time to do the work, is not
causing problems to the same degree at present. The Government often
tell the rest of us that our anecdotal impressions and the anecdotal
repute of a problem do not always mean that it is as bad as it is
stated to be by public representatives. Equally, the Government often
have to consider whether the remedies demanded by public
representatives will in fact be as good, or as effective, as they claim
they will be. Here we have an example of the Government purporting to
legislate to deal with a problem that I believe they have exaggerated,
and the solution certainly will not be as effective as they are
suggesting.
The point
is that the road congestion and difficulties in Northern
Ireland—those things that cause pressure on traffic
patterns—have little to do with the work of roads utilities,
although of course anything that improves the management and planning
of such work can help. I hope that the Minister will be able in winding
up to address whether current planning and management arrangements
cannot be modified to be better, without all the ancillary and
associated costs and regulations that the order brings. He said that
the order would operate very much on a common-sense basis, that nothing
would absolutely have to be done and that there would be flexibility,
good sense and good judgment. Why do we need this regulatory regime
simply to have a bit more common sense than there is at
present?
The Minister
referred to consultation, and the explanatory memorandum also refers to
it, but the order includes amendments to existing legislation that were
not mentioned in the consultation paper that came out in June 2005.
They never surfaced in respect of the problem that we are discussing.
Let us consider some of the amendments: article 4, on the street works
register; article 5, on the duty to inspect records; article 12, on the
qualifications of supervisors and operatives; article 14, on inspection
fees following failure to reinstate; article 15, on notices requiring
remedial works relating to reinstatements; article 17, on guidance
about street authority inspections; and article 20, on fees for
inspections. None of those were addressed in the original consultation
exercise, but all of them have significant resource implications. Some
of them involve costs to the utilities; some involve costs to the
public purse. There are, of course, other issues that have resource
implications, such as the guidance on street authority inspections
under article 17, but some of those issues were mentioned in the
consultation document.
Given that the Government have
positive expectations about the prospects for a return to devolution,
why rush the order through? There is no big demand to ensure that it
beats the bar. I should imagine that local, devolved Ministers who
approach such problems would believe that they, alongside the new local
authorities when they come into being, could agree perhaps more of a
common-sense arrangement
and work with the utility companies and others to find a better planned
approach and a better managed situation.
Devolved Ministers might also
consider the option of translating lessons from this island to Northern
Ireland, one of which might be the way the matter is approached in
Scotland, where different arrangements apply. Scotland has not gone the
way of the Traffic Management Act 2004. Something like a roadworks
commissioner, with the appropriate directions and duties that would
attach to such a post, and a roadworks register might commend
themselves much better to Northern Ireland than the 2004 Act does for
England, in that it deals with problems in busy cities, where numerous
utility companies all compete in the same sector. In Northern Ireland,
there are not all sorts of different companies competing with each
other in different towns, streets and markets. Our utility markets are
not crowded, as they are in cities in
England.
What is the
urgency? What is the rush? If the whole point of the framework is to
leave things to the discretion and choice of a future local Executive
and Assembly, why push the order through
now?
4.57
pm
Mr.
Reid:
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Jones,
and wish you and the rest of the Committee a happy new year. We have
all suffered from the traffic congestion caused by repeated roadworks,
and we have also seen roads deteriorate because of badly done
reinstatement work by utility companies. In the light of that, I
welcome the order’s objectives, which are to achieve the more
efficient management of streetworks carried out by the utility
companies and to minimise disruption. I hope that the order will result
a more co-ordinated and cohesive approach to the management of
streetworks in Northern Ireland, and that the increased powers of the
Department will result in a reduction to the disruption to road
users.
The utility
companies have, quite naturally, expressed some concerns about the bill
that they face. I should like to raise one of two of those concerns, so
that the Minister can respond. The Department’s explanatory
memorandum estimates that the cost to the utilities in Northern Ireland
will be approximately £7 million annually. In their statement,
the utilities estimate the cost to be about £15 million
annually. Did the utility companies demonstrate in their submission to
the Minister why they believed that the costs were more than double the
Department’s estimate? If the Minister has had a chance to look
at what the utility companies estimated, perhaps he could say why he
believes that his Department’s estimate is correct and theirs is
not. The utility companies have also said that the order will make it
difficult to extend the natural gas network into new areas. Perhaps the
Minister can respond to that concern.
We all hope that this is one of
the last orders that we shall discuss, that the Assembly can get up and
running and that, as the Minister has said, the final decisions about
how to implement the order will be taken locally. However, can the
Minister give an assurance that, if the Government are still in charge
when the order has to be implemented, the cost passed on to utility
companies
would simply be that incurred by the public sector under the order and
that that would not be seen as a method of raising
revenue?
5
pm
Sammy
Wilson:
First, I reiterate what other hon. Members have
said: I hope that this will be one of the last pieces of such
legislation to go through the House. It is extraordinary that Northern
Ireland legislation is not subject to amendment but is simply accepted
or rejected regardless of how bad or good, or how weak or strong, the
orders may be. Indeed, as the debates go on we sometimes realise that
certain things could be better considered, but we do not have the
opportunity to do so. I hope that, before the end of the Session, the
politicians of Northern Ireland will have the opportunity properly to
debate legislation and to ensure that it is carried through in a way
that allows for amendment.
Of course many people who drive
in Northern Ireland will want to see less disruption on the roads, will
want to see the roads better maintained and will want to see those who
dig them up being held responsible for reinstating them and putting
them back in a proper condition. However, I am not sure that the order
will result in some of the aims outlined by the Minister being
achieved. Significantly, the first thing that he said was that it would
minimise disruption and congestion on roads in Northern Ireland. As he
said, the Department for Regional Development’s Roads Service is
not covered by the order, but the vast majority of work to roads in
Northern Ireland is carried out by the Roads Service, and many hold-ups
and much congestion and disruption results from that kind of work. That
particular objective will not be achieved.
I know that the research into
the problem may not be fully endorsed by everyone, but it is reckoned
that the utility companies’ roadworks are the cause of
about5 per cent. of road congestion. The order, as the
Minister pointed out, will not stop utilities digging up roads; they
will still be permitted to do so. If only 5 per cent. of the congestion
is down to utilities and much of their work is to go on as before, how
can the Minister say that the purpose of the legislation is to minimise
disruption and reduce congestion? It attacks a only small part of the
problem.
The second
point on congestion is that full lane reinstatement—I shall
return to the subject in a moment—will allow people two or three
goes at roadworks. One cannot reinstate a road immediately after the
work is done. One has to allow time first for filling in and for
subsidence, and then dig up the surface again before full lane
reinstatement. I can see the purpose of that provision, although I am
not sure how it will work, but it is likely to lead to a doubling of
the amount of work, because the trench will be filled in after the
works but only later will the surface be fully reinstated.
For those reasons, I am not so
sure that the Minister’s claim that the order will help to
reduce congestion is true. If he had said that he wanted to ensure that
utilities lived up to their obligation to leave
roads as they found them, we might agree that the order would have some
effect. I do not know whether it is necessary to put all those
provisions in place to achieve that. It is hoped that the issuing of
permits, lane rentals and other such acts under the legislation will
help to achieve some of those objectives and, as the Minister has said,
might prevent the unnecessary reopening of roads.
I find that a strange argument
from the Minister’s point of view, in so far as I should have
thought that the easy way to do that would be to use the information
that the Minister has told us today that the Department has at its
disposal. The Minister said that the Department holds a centrally
controlled database and register of the works that have to be done, who
has to do them and so on. Surely the proper use of that database and
register is the way to minimise the opening and reopening of roads and
to ensure that, if those who have opened them—surely that should
be on the register—have not properly reinstated the road, they
are made to do so.
Why all the legislation is
required in light of the information that the Department holds, I am
not so sure. I serve on a local council, and I know that we have such
arguments with Roads Service officials all the time. I suspect that,
even with the register available, there is still a lax supervision of
much of the work that is required. Unless the information available is
used properly, all we will be doing is charging people for permits and
lane rentals, while they still open and reopen roads as they do at
present. I want the Minister to address that point. Why, if we have the
information about who wants to open roads, who has opened them, when
they have been opened and what work has been done, cannot that
information be used to minimise the disruption and reduce the number of
road openings?
The
hon. Member for Foyle has outlined my third point—I shall not go
through all the articles. Legislation in respect of Northern Ireland,
as a number of hon. Members have pointed out, goes through the House in
a less than satisfactory way. One would therefore have expected that,
where consultation could take place outside the premises of Parliament
before the legislation was drafted, that consultation should at least
have been thorough.
As the hon. Gentleman pointed
out, a quarter of the order—seven of the 28 articles—was
never in the original consultation document that had to be responded to
but was made up of amendments that were introduced afterwards and were
therefore not subject to any consultation. Not only do we have
legislation that cannot be amended and that goes through in an hour and
a half, or whatever, but a substantial part of that legislation was
never presented in the original consultation document. All the items
that have been put on the record by the hon. Gentleman have cost
implications for either the Department or the industry. I should have
thought that we could at least have had proper public consultation on
them before the legislation was finally brought for
discussion.
My other
point is simply on the matter of the costs. The Minister has been
ambiguous about a number of issues, and I always get a bit nervous when
any ambiguity is associated with anything that the Roads Service is
identified with. I do not take the same view
that many Roads Service decisions will ensure good sense and good
judgment. I see some of the officials smiling, but on many occasions I
have found the Roads Service to be fairly inflexible. Once it is given
powers, not too much flexibility is shown.
We do not have a clear picture
of the cost of the order to the Department. There will be employment
implications for the Department. Some people have suggested that as
many as 30 additional staff could be employed. There will be a cost to
the public utility industry. The industry has put the cost at
£15 million; the Minister has put it at £7 million.
Whether or not that includes the reinstatement of lanes and so on is
debatable. We do not know the costs. I should have thought that, with
such an order, we would have had some
idea.
Mark
Durkan:
On the 30 additional posts in the Department that
are identified in the explanatory memorandum and the other costs that
the hon. Gentleman has referred to, has he been able to establish
whether those 30 posts also represent the subsequent costs that will be
borne by the local authorities when they take over responsibility for
roads, or will those costs remain with the Department? There are also
unknown local authority costs, which have yet to be factored in for the
future as
well.
Sammy
Wilson:
The hon. Gentleman makes a very interesting point,
because there is a great fear that, when some of these matters are
devolved to local authorities, additional costs will fall on the
ratepayers, so the public will be required to pay not only for the
posts by paying more for the services given by utilities, but for them
a second time through an increase in the district rate. We are not
clear about any of that. The Minister did not clear up the point during
his initial comments; perhaps he can clear it up at the end of the
debate.
I take some
hope from what the Minister has said, in that the full lane
reinstatement power will not be used on every occasion. Nevertheless,
many people will fear that, once that power has been given to the
Department, the cost of resurfacing roads will move away from the
already overstrained roads maintenance budget to the public in another
way—through an insistence that public utilities carry out the
work. Of course, public utilities get their money from the public
because they sell services to them. The fear is that the power will be
increasingly used as a way to maintain roads and to shift the
responsibility from the Roads Service
budget.
The Minister
said that not every road would require a permit to be opened. He said
that full lane reinstatement would be required only in certain
circumstances. However, once the power exists, we cannot ensure that
flexibility or good sense will always be applied. I again stress to the
Minister that those assurances are insufficient, without specifying the
kind of grounds on which roads could be opened without permits and the
cases in which reinstatement would not be necessary. Unless we have
greater clarity on that, the impetus, I believe, will simply be placed
on using the powers and on doing so fairly inflexibly. That has been my
experience of the Roads Service in Northern Ireland. I fear that,
having been granted, the powers
will be used fairly inflexibly, leading to delay sometimes in the
provision of public services and to an increase in the
costs.
I do not
know—I will listen to what the Minister says—whether we
will want to divide the Committee on the order. As I said at the
outset, the aims of the legislation would have general acceptance in
Northern Ireland, but when we look at the specifics of it, we see that
there is no guarantee that those aims will be met. Indeed, there are
great fears in the industry that this is simply another imposition on a
very small group of people who are involved in digging up roads in
Northern Ireland, while most of the main culprits are let off
scot-free.
5.15
pm
David
Cairns:
This debate has been useful, and some entirely
appropriate questions have been asked; I shall try to get through them
in the time available.
The hon. Member for Tewkesbury
and others mentioned the difference between our approach, which is
modelled on the English and Welsh approach, and the Scottish approach.
The differences are there onthe ground. In Scotland, a private
company has responsibility for maintaining the trunk road network,
while local authorities have responsibility for local roads, and there
is a need for national oversight. That is not required in Northern
Ireland, because there is only one roads Department, which carries out
a lot of the functions and effectively fulfils the role of independent
traffic manager that I mentioned. Obviously, as we devolve some of the
powers by transferring functions to local councils, those councils will
take on more of that responsibility.
The starting point in Scotland
is, however, different from that in Northern Ireland, and it remains to
be seen which model will be more successful. The hon. Gentleman is
right to say that, in five years’ time, we may be able to
measure that, although, as everyone has said, the works that we are
discussing do not represent the majority of reasons why there is
disruption. They might be difficult to disaggregate. We have chosen a
different model because the starting point is
different.
The hon.
Member for East Antrim mentioned the figures of £15 million and
£7 million. Nothing in the order has of itself a cost
implication to which we can put a price tag. The order gives the
ability to make regulations to set up permit schemes, impose charging
and do all the relevant things. The price tag will be attached at that
stage—once the regulations are made and once we have seen what
will and will not require a permit and what the charges for overruns
and all the rest of it will be. That is all the subject of future
consultation with the industry and others. Unless we take the necessary
powers, we will not be able to introduce the
regulations.
I do not
apologise for the fact that I do not have an absolute figure, because
the work has not been done to get the regulations that would enable us
to have it. I am not saying that the figure of £15 million is
wrong. We have estimated that the figure will be £7 million, but
the real figure will become apparent as the regulations are devised. It
will then be for local Ministers to decide whether to proceed on that
basis.
Mark
Durkan:
Will the Minister at least
help to clarify the point made by some people—that
the£7 million or £7.2 million figure given by
the Government deals only with the cost implications that arise from
the permits and overruns, but not with any of the other associated
costs? The industry says that its figure of £15 million takes in
other costs, but does not include some costs, including that of
computerisation. The industry says that it has counted in more, but not
everything, and that the Government have counted in purely road permits
and overruns. Is that
true?
David
Cairns:
Yes, it is true that our figure refers to the
permit scheme, but the industry does not know what the additional costs
will be because the cost regime has not been set. It has given a
guestimate; I have not said that the industry figure is wrong, but that
it is not possible at this stage to be definitive about
it.
Mark
Durkan:
The Government do not know
either.
David
Cairns:
The hon. Gentleman is acting as if he had
discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun or made some other great discovery.
The very first thing that I said was that we were taking a series of
regulation-making powers. Most of this will be done through the
affirmative procedure in the Assembly, so it will be for local
Ministers and the Assembly to come up with the scheme of charges and
costs and to decide whether to proceed. I said that in my opening
sentence; no great discovery has been made.
The remarks made by the hon.
Member for Foyle were slightly surprising in their negativity and
hostility. They took me by surprise because they were in sharp contrast
to the official response of his party, which was much more positive and
welcomed the measures that we have proposed. If the hon. Gentleman has
not seen it, I shall happily give him a copy of a letter from his
party’s regional development spokesman, Margaret Ritchie. She
regularly corresponds with me and frequently holds me to account for
all sorts of things—only last night she was having another go at
me. The hon. Gentleman said that the Government were exaggerating the
congestion problem. However, his party’s spokesperson
wrote:
“The
disturbance and congestion such works often cause is a readily
identifiable source of antagonism amongst citizens and a decrease in
this would be beneficial to all road users... We welcome the
inclusion in the Order of a permit scheme as a method of managing
street works... Also to be welcomed are the proposed increases in
the powers of the Department in respect of restricting when and where
street works can be carried
out.”
The SDLP welcomes
the power to require, where justified, larger areas of the road to be
resurfaced at a cost to the utilities. Not every member of the
Committee has a copy of the letter, so I shall not quote all of it, but
I am willing to give the hon. Gentleman a copy of it, because I thought
that his party welcomed the
order.
Mark
Durkan:
There is no disagreement between me and our
regional development spokesperson on the issue. She responded in good
faith to consultation proposals, but she has also made it clear
subsequently that, on further reflection and after contact with others,
she does not accept that the Government’s proposals are
necessarily the best answer to the
problem. I did not say that there was no problem; I
simply said that devolved Ministers approaching the issue might come up
with something closer to the Scottish approach than what the Minister
is legislating for, and that view is shared by Margaret
Ritchie.
David
Cairns:
All I have is what Margaret Ritchie said in her
official response to the consultation. The hon. Gentleman said that the
Government exaggerated the problem, but his spokesman said that it is
“readily identifiable”, although perhaps after
consultation with him she has realised that it is not readily
identifiable.
[Interruption.] I am not going to give
way—nobody else has the letter, so it would be
pointless.
James
Duddridge:
What is the date on that
letter?
David
Cairns:
It is dated 11 July 2006—Margaret Ritchie
was obviously hard at work in the week of12 July, responding
to the policy consultation.
The hon. Member for Argyll and
Bute mentioned the gap between the utilities’ figure and the
Department’s figure, which I have mentioned. He also asked
whether the order would threaten the extension of the natural gas
network into new areas. The answer is no—I do not think that it
will. There is also the question of whether the charges will be passed
on to the consumers. Utilities do not have to pass the charges on to
the consumers if they do not want to—they are doing all right,
making hefty profits.
Mr.
Robertson:
In the real world.
David
Cairns:
The hon. Gentleman may say that—I would
welcome the utilities saying that they would not pass those costs on to
consumers, but that is a commercial decision for them to make. Until we
know the scale of the costs, it is perhaps futile to speculate too
much, but the utilities do not have to pass the costs on to the
consumers if they do not want to.
That brings me on to a point
that the hon. Member for East Antrim and others made—I shall
close on this point. I have never said that streetworks are responsible
for the majority of congestion—they are not—but it is
unfair to say that we are clobbering the utilities and doing nothing
about the rest of the congestion problems. Some of the problems are
caused by our massive strategic road investment programme, with the
Westlink, in the north-west, where I hope the hon. Gentleman would
agree we are planning to spend huge amounts of money on the road
network. That will necessitate congestion, as always, which is one
reason for this
process.
As the hon.
Gentleman knows, we have also taken measures in the Greater Belfast
area to introduce park-and-ride schemes, which can reduce congestion,
as well as dedicated bus lanes, which have been very successful. I
opened one at Sprucefield before the summer, and it is now almost
running at capacity. We are investing in buses and public transport. We
are also addressing illegal parking, which causes congestion, and
decriminalised parking enforcement has been successful. Stephen Nolan
has referred to my private army of traffic wardens, but they are
tackling a problem that leads to congestion. I accept that there are
lots of reasons for congestion, and we are tackling a range of them,
but some of the congestion has been brought about by the fact that we
are investing in road programmes.
Sammy
Wilson:
Lest the Minister think that everyone is being
totally negative, I should like to put on the record the fact that
where the Roads Service has undertaken major strategic road
schemes—the Westlink is a good example—a lot of work has
gone into avoiding congestion. Most road users have accepted that
building that into contracts has been very worth while and
successful.
David
Cairns:
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s comments. As
I said in my opening remarks, the draft order introduces provisions for
managing and controlling streetworks similar to those already in place
in England and Wales. It is important that the street authorities in
Northern Ireland have equally strong measures available to them to
manage where, when and how often the streets can be dug up, to help to
reduce traffic disruption and congestion. I therefore hope that the
Committee will support the
order.
Question
put:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 12, Noes
1.
Division No.
1
]
Foster,
Mr. Michael
(Worcester)
Question
accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That
the Committee has considered the considered the draft Street Works
(Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order
2007.
Committee
rose at twenty-six minutes past Five
o’clock.
