Clause
97
Local
charging schemes to implement policies of
ITAs
Graham
Stringer:
I beg to move amendment No. 14, in
clause 97, page 79, line 16, at
end insert—
‘(3A) A local
charging scheme shall not be made unless a referendum of all electors
within the boundary of the relevant integrated transport area has been
held and a majority of electors are in favour of the establishment of a
local charging
scheme.’.
The
purpose of this amendment is to ensure that congestion charging schemes
will not go ahead without a referendum of all the people in the area of
the integrated transport authority. However, the real purpose is to
have a debate related to the last debate on what the local validation
process and method of consent should be. I accept that there are all
sorts of flaws with referendums and that people vote on other issues.
They vote on the popularity or unpopularity of local authorities and
the Government. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe
pointed out, voters may not be able to easily envisage the benefits of
a scheme.
Having said
that, with something as toxic as imposing a new tax without any relief
in taxation elsewhere, we have to be clear what the method of consent
is, and I have not been very satisfied with the process of the
transport innovation fund bid as it applies to congestion charging in
Manchester. We have heard the Opposition state that the Government have
said that TIF bids will go ahead only where there are congestion
charges. I believe that to be the case, but of course, the last but one
Secretary of State for Transport said on a number of occasions on the
Floor of the House that this absolutely was not to be a condition that
would be looked at. When his successor visited Manchester, he told the
passenger transport executive group not to bother applying for
extra funds to extend the tram system if it did not have a road charge.
His exact words were that congestion charging was the “only show
in
town”.
That
is the background. The Government say that this is enabling legislation
and how could any reasonable person who supports and believes in local
democracy, be against enabling legislation? I am certainly not, but
that is not the reality that we have experienced in Manchester. The
reality is that this is enabling legislation with the Government behind
it, twisting arms. The Government want to look at Manchester as an
experiment in road pricing congestion charging, having withdrawn
support for a national road pricing scheme. The arguments for doing
that have been various and many. Some have been odd.
Most of the economic damage done
in this country by congestion—distinguishing it from other
countries in Europe, with the possible exception of the
Netherlands—is inter-urban congestion. That is what really puts
the price on. That relies on reports such as the Eddington report,
which in my opinion was heavily influenced by Treasury thinking and not
so much by Eddington himself, having known his views beforehand, read
the report afterwards and been unable to match them. He pointed out
something that is regularly quoted by the Government: there is more
congestion in cities than on the inter-urban network. Well, there is a
surprise. Cities are concentrated, focused places. There is always
going to be congestion in cities, particularly successful cities. That
is not necessarily a complete argument for putting on a congestion
charge and taxing people
extra.
I disagree, on
an evidential basis, with what my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield,
Attercliffe said about the evidence of people moving to public
transport where public transport is provided. Certainly, over the past
seven years on trains and trams in Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and
London, as the services have become more frequent, the growth in
passengers has far exceeded the growth in car
traffic.
The case that
has been made for introducing a particular, special tax in Manchester
and nowhere else, as an experiment, has been very dodgy, particularly
considering what the Government are using for their congestion
projections; one thing that we can say is that projections are always
wrong. It was projected the price of petrol would rise to and remain
steady at $50 a barrel. I do not blame the Government for that, because
few economists expected oil to be at $120-plus now. However, that is
where the price is, and that is likely to affect congestion and growth
in traffic; certainly, in the early ’90s it affected the growth
in traffic. It would also help if the 2 million vehicles that drive
around our cities and roads unlicensed and uninsured were taken off the
roads—that would be a major contribution to getting rid of
congestion.
How are we
going to validate the introduction of a congestion charge? Of course
there will be consultation, said the Minister. However, will it conform
to Cabinet Office standards? There were guidelines for the Manchester
TIF consultation, but when the Manchester TIF bid was put in the
consultation was a sham. It did not conform to Cabinet Office
guidelines, although we were told that it
would.
Will
the whole process of consultation be transparent? The TIF bids so far
have not been transparent. When I put freedom of information requests
to the Department for Transport—to find out what the
correspondence between the Greater Manchester authorities and the
Department for Transport had been—I am told that it is
commercially sensitive. How is it commercially sensitive? People have a
right to
know.
Mr.
Leech:
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the vast
majority of people in Greater Manchester do not know the details of the
proposed
scheme?
Graham
Stringer:
The hon. Gentleman makes a blindingly obvious
point. The documents are confidential. The TIF bid that has gone in is
not available. I was
given a copy of the bid, on my honour not to spread it about. I accepted
it on that basis, because I wanted to see what was in it. Perhaps I
should not have accepted it. However, most of the campaigners against a
congestion charge have been unable to get that information, and I have
not given it to them. I can see no reason why that information should
have been kept secret. I do not know why the Department for Transport
does not believe it. It is a bad omen and a bad precedent if we are to
believe that there will be consent of local people before the project
in Manchester goes ahead. I will listen with interest to what the
Minister says, and I want to be assured that if there is not a
referendum—and I do not expect the amendment to be agreed to,
now or on Report—there will be a completely transparent and
independently assessed consultation.
Secretaries of State have said
that we must bring in a congestion charge. Can the Minister tell me
that she expects that, if opinion polls are carried out, they will not
be carried out by the promoters of the scheme, but independently, so
that they can be checked? The client of the polling organisation should
be independent and all the conversations between and documentation from
those bodies should be available to the public.
I say this out of a
party-political vested interest, apart from anything else: the right
hon. Member for East Yorkshire was right. Dr. Roger Jones, the former
Irlam councillor, is a friend of mine even though we disagreed on the
congestion charge, which was the only real issue in the election in
Irlam. It was the worst result in Irlam, a traditional Labour seat, for
the last 35 or 36 years. I do not want my hon. Friends who are Members
of this House, or my friends who are Labour councillors, to lose their
seats.
Most of the
opinion polls show that 80 per cent. of the public in Greater
Manchester are against this scheme, though I accept that no one really
knows the details of it. If the public do not have a referendum or the
chance to be satisfied that there is a thorough consultation that
represents their views, they will take out their anger or disagreement
with the scheme on Labour councillors and MPs. I want to avoid that by
ensuring that integrated transport authorities are not set up or
highway powers transferred without the consent of people and with the
active opposition of some councils.
We heard this morning that these
powers could be transferred against the wishes of some councils and
against the wishes of the population, and then a congestion charge
scheme could be imposed, again without complete consent. Politically,
for my Government and for my party in control of four local authorities
in Greater Manchester, to introduce a tax on top of other taxes at the
present time is, quite frankly, bonkers.
When the prices of food, fuel
and other necessities of life are going up, it is not sensible to look
at a new tax on top. That does not invalidate the case for congestion
charges as a principle. That may well exist. However, to have a charge
in one place without any compensation elsewhere would be a huge
mistake. I look forward to my right hon. Friend’s answers about
the transparency of the process and the validation of any process,
whether it be a referendum or a deep
consultation.
2.45
pm
Mr.
Lee Scott (Ilford, North) (Con): I support the hon. Member
for Manchester, Blackley, for a number of reasons. Consider the
extension to the congestion charge in London. The Minister said earlier
that she expected councils to consult, but the then—fortunately
no longer—Mayor of London did consult but ignored the
consultation when it was clearly against the extension. I fully agree
that it is unlikely that a referendum will be put in the Bill, but
there needs to be a mechanism that residents can trust that is not run
by people who want such schemes in place. That goes for whichever
political persuasion the people in control of an area may be.
The
other important factor is the difference between road charging and
congestion charging. People must be able to see that the congestion
charge will ease congestion. Out of interest, yesterday I met a
delegation from the Dutch Parliament, where they are looking at a
national congestion charge or road charging scheme, but intend to scrap
their equivalent of road tax and taxation so that people will not
necessarily pay more unless they are driving substantially longer
distances, so they will not be penalised. That truly is congestion
charging, rather than road charging or extra taxation.
Some of the points raised by the
hon. Gentleman were perfectly correct. Let us take an area just outside
or on the fringes of London, like my constituency, so we are outside
the congestion charge zone. We were told that the congestion charge
would ease congestion. In fact, congestion has not gone down over the
period of time. It is exactly the same as when the congestion charge
was first brought in. That is with more buses, even after the debacle
of Metronet and the money that was wasted on that. However,
improvements to public transport have not eased congestion whatsoever,
and that is according to official Government statistics, or should I
say Greater London authority statistics?
I fully support what the hon.
Member is trying to introduce. There has to be a mechanism that people
will trust. Then they will not feel that the people who they have
elected to represent them, from whatever political party, are letting
them down. When the Minister says that she expects that councils will
do this, it is great to expect it, but it does not necessarily mean
that they are going to do it or that they will listen to the results.
That needs to be enshrined in the
Bill.
Mr.
Leech:
I, too, lend my support to the amendment. I hope
that the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley will choose to push it to
a vote.
I cannot
resist the temptation to point out that the amendment is in line with
Manchester Liberal Democrat policy and contrary to Manchester Labour
party policy as far as local congestion charging schemes are concerned.
During the elections only last week, members of the Labour party in
Manchester were suggesting that the Liberal Democrats in Manchester
were all over the place on congestion charging. It is completely the
opposite way around. The Manchester Liberal Democrats fully support a
referendum before any local congestion charging scheme is introduced.
It is the Labour party that seems to be completely divided on the
issue.
I am not
suggesting for one second that the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley
is all over the place on the issue. He has been completely consistent
in his
opposition to the congestion charge in Manchester. However, his
colleagues are not in line with his views on the congestion charge or
with his obvious support for a referendum prior to any charge being
introduced. It is only
fair to say that Roger Jones fell foul of the congestion charge
proposals in Greater Manchester. It is a great shame that the campaign
was waged against him purely on one issue. It was disappointing to see
the resources put in by the anti-congestion charge lobby to try to
defeat him over the issue. Local government is not just about single
issues, but a whole range of issues. Regardless of one’s
political views or political opinions, Roger Jones served the people of
Salford in Irlam and the PTA very well. I do not always necessarily
agree with the views they espouse but it was very disappointing that
the anti-congestion charge lobby attacked him in the way that it
did.
That said,
councillors in Manchester, other parts of Greater Manchester and
anywhere else where a local scheme might be proposed should beware of
what happened to former Councillor Jones in Irlam. In future there
should be full support given locally before a scheme is
introduced.
I hope that
the amendment is pressed to a vote and that, hopefully with some
support from Labour Members, we can defeat the Government on this
issue.
Mr.
Knight:
The hon. Gentleman may not like it when a single
issue carries a lot of votes but the message is that politicians should
beware if they are seeking to advance policies that the general public
detest. My party has been there. We pushed ahead with the poll tax and
look what happened to my party at the subsequent election. There is a
warning here for Labour Members.
I return to the very brave
speech of the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley. He was responsible
for a devastating attack on the Minister. He left the Minister’s
assertions in tatters and left her naked in terms of her
argument.
The idea that
this is an enabling provision and that local councillors are free to
apply their judgment with the knowledge of local circumstances to this
issue is just not happening, as he rightly said. On Second Reading, I
referred to a similar case in my constituency where the local council
wished to carry out road improvements in Bridlington and was told
bluntly by the Department for Transport that unless it incorporated a
park-and-ride scheme, it could not have the money.
We know from the report in
The Times and other comments that have been made, including from
the hon. Gentleman, that the Government are doing the same thing on
road charging. They cannot say it is a matter for local councillors
because they are—I was going to say “blackmailing”
but perhaps that is a little unparliamentary—arm-twisting local
councillors into making decisions that they would not otherwise make.
That is why I am pleased to support the amendment.
It is important to look at what
is happening to the cost of motoring. As the hon. Gentleman said, if
this was an attempt to shift the tax that motorists face from one or
two other sources into road charging, we would be having a totally
different debate. It is not. It is to be an additional imposition on
the motorist against a background where tax on drivers is up
£600 a year. According to yesterday’s Daily
Telegraph:
“Figures compiled by the
AA show that the average motorist pays more than £1,800 annually
in fuel duty, car tax, VAT on petrol and other levies—an
increase of more than 50 per cent in little more than a
decade.”
It goes on to
say:
“When
Labour came to power in 1997, the Government raised a total of
£31.3 billion from motoring taxes... By 2006, that had
increased to £45 billion and increases in fuel duty and excise
duty are expected to lead to a tax take of at least £48 billion
this year—a 53 per cent
rise.”
No wonder
electors are saying, “Enough is enough. We do not want to have
to pay road-user charging as well.” That is why poor
Mr. Jones lost his
seat.
Mr.
Leech:
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that, in real
terms, the cost of motoring has fallen, whereas the cost of travelling
by train or bus has
risen?
Mr.
Knight:
I do not think the information provided by
T
he
Daily Telegraph would bear out that assertion. I
suggest that the hon. Gentleman read yesterday’s paper, which I
am sure is available in the
Library.
My only
criticism of the amendment relates to drafting. It might be impossible
ever to get a yes vote, because the amendment
says:
“A local
charging scheme shall not be made unless a referendum of all electors
within the boundary of the relevant integrated transport area has been
held and a majority of electors are in
favour”.
If the hon.
Member for Manchester, Blackley had referred to “a majority of
electors voting are in favour” there would not have been a
problem. However, the amendment could be taken to mean that a majority
of electors on the electoral role had to be in favour, and I do not
think that threshold would ever be reached if that test were
applied.
That is a
minor criticism, however, and I think that the principle of having a
referendum is a good one, particularly in the light of the arm twisting
of local decision-makers that is going on. Someone has to be able to
express a free and unfettered voice on the issue before such a proposal
is introduced. Although many Conservatives feel that referendums are
alien to our system of democracy, for the reasons that I and the three
previous speakers mentioned I think that this is one way to proceed,
which is why I support the
amendment.
Stephen
Hammond:
I, too, rise to support the amendment. It is
extremely important and goes some way toward the position that I
outlined earlier—that there is a need for local validation of
these schemes. I accept the argument already made by several Members
that local electors exercise the function of local referendums at local
elections, and Mr. Jones, a week later, is
probably feeling that that is what happened to him. None the less,
there are imperfections to that argument, because in a number of areas
elections are held only once every four years, so the referendum
element of a local election cannot really happen.
The problem with the amendment
was outlined by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe when he
challenged me earlier, which is that it is highly likely that there
would be no chance of a scheme being
accepted as people are initially reluctant to vote for a congestion
charging scheme if they are going to have to pay more
money. While I fully
support and see the need for referendums, no matter how alien the
concept may be, the amendment would have benefited from wording such
that it allowed a referendum to occur either at the time of the
congestion charge being introduced or—as I mentioned happens in
several international cases, where a time limit is set after the
introduction of a congestion charge for the scheme to be
validated—six or 12 months afterwards. There have been cases of
schemes then being
accepted.
That would
have had the benefit of answering the criticism that I am sure the
Minister is about to make, which is that, to all intents and purposes,
the amendment would wreck the ability of local authorities ever to
introduce congestion charges. However, the principle of local
validation is correct, and despite its imperfections the amendment
would take us a huge step forward toward ensuring that local consent
was given to local schemes. I shall certainly support
it.
Ms
Winterton:
I want to re-emphasise that what is happening
is not a massive change from the situation at the moment. However, we
have had that argument and I will simply address the idea of having a
compulsory
referendum.
The
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, which
amended the Local Government Act 1999, imposes a duty on local
authorities to involve local persons in the exercise of any of their
functions, where appropriate. The functions to which that duty applies
include establishing a local road charging
scheme.
Local schemes
are tailor made to tackle local problems, and, as such, we believe that
consultation should be appropriate to the scheme proposed and to the
local situation. We have tried to take a flexible approach to the
forward consultation, which local authorities should follow, and do not
feel it appropriate for central Government to impose a specific form,
such as a compulsory referendum. The aim of the Bill is to devolve
responsibility for decision-making to the local level, and it would run
contrary to that to start imposing restraints and inflexible duties
from the centre. For that reason, I cannot accept the amendment and I
hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley will
withdraw
it.
3
pm
Graham
Stringer:
I am disappointed with that response because,
while I am not totally wedded to the idea of referendums, I think that
reasonable people can see advantages and disadvantages in them. On
something as controversial as this, I would expect a rather better
response as to how validation—the involvement of local
people—should take place, to quote my right hon. Friend the
Minister. There was no answer on the secrecy involved in communications
between the Greater Manchester authorities and the Department for
Transport. There was no answer on why a TIF bid—which has been
with the Government for so long and involves about £3 billion of
public
expenditure—should have remained secret. There was no attempt to
justify whether there was some commercial basis to
this.
As
the debate has continued, having raised those issues about referendums,
I became slightly more wedded to the idea of referendums to decide the
principle of a road charging scheme. It would be difficult for two
reasons to do what the hon. Member for Wimbledon wants, as my hon.
Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe implied—that is,
have a referendum once the scheme is up and running. First, a lot of
money has to be invested in kit, and that goes away, but secondly, the
nature of the TIF bid on this occasion is that more than £1
billion of taxpayers’ money is being tied into funding trams and
train improvements. So, it would not be realistic to vote no at that
stage—once the scheme is in, it is there for 30
years.
Stephen
Hammond:
The hon. Gentleman makes absolutely correct
points, but the Bill could deal with circumstances whereby the money
raised from local user charging would not necessarily be connected to a
TIF bid. My circumstances take place without the consequence of a TIF
bid because TIF, although it has been extended, is due to run out in
about 2013, or 2018, after the extension? But there is potentially no
reason why these schemes should necessarily be connected to TIF. My
understanding—I am sure that, thanks to his knowledge of the
Select Committee, the hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am
wrong—is that the proposal I have outlined is exactly what
Stockholm has
done.
Graham
Stringer:
I accept that the particular circumstances
applying in Manchester will not necessarily apply everywhere else, but
I do not think that we should take the Stockholm model. The referendum
held by the boroughs just outside Stockholm produced a vote against
having a congestion charge. The conservative parties won an election
opposing a congestion charge, but when they got elected they imposed a
congestion charge because they needed a deal with the Greens. Stockholm
is a particularly bad model for how to respond to the views of local
people. However, I accept that there can be
exceptions.
My
right hon. Friend the Minister did not really make the case for why
referendums are suitable for deciding whether there should be a mayor
in Hartlepool or elsewhere. That, in some ways, represents a less
fundamental change in local democracy than the changes being discussed
here. Why was a referendum appropriate in Scotland to set up the
Scottish Parliament, which has relatively trivial tax-making powers
compared to this proposal? That was a huge change, but if we look at
the taxation side we see that the Scottish Parliament may raise a
relatively small amount—it has never used that
power.
The recent
history of referendums is much more in line with achieving such
constitutional change than the Minister gave credit for—more
than for tax-raising
changes.
Mr.
Knight:
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the city
of Edinburgh had a referendum on the
issue?
Graham
Stringer:
The city of Edinburgh did, and in that example
people voted against a congestion charge.
I want to discuss two other
points that were brought up in debate. I am not really party political
point scoring, but the Liberal Democrats in Greater Manchester are all
over the place—Liberal Democrats in Rochdale have a totally
different view from Liberal Democrats in Manchester. That it is not
party political point scoring because the same has happened with the
Labour party. The Labour party in Bury has a different view from the
Labour party in
Manchester.
The fact is
that a new tax is being forced on people in Manchester to carry out
investment in the tram system that was promised in the Labour party
manifesto—people want the public transport—but this has
been a difficult decision for all political parties in Greater
Manchester. However, I will not have it that the Liberal Democrats have
come through united and integrated. That is simply not
true.
Mr.
Leech:
If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I said,
he would know that I referred to Manchester Liberal Democrats, not
Greater Manchester Liberal Democrats. We have been clearly in favour of
a
referendum.
Graham
Stringer:
The fact is that this is a scheme for Greater
Manchester and the Liberal Democrats are split on the issue. I will not
repeat the previous
points.
I realise that,
in recognising Roger Jones as a friend of mine, I did not also pay
tribute to his work as chair of the PTA, where he worked closely with
all political parties to the benefit of public transport in Greater
Manchester. He did a good job as a local councillor in Irlam and it is
a pity that he became the focus for anger about the possibility of a
new tax in Manchester. The loss is to the Labour party and to the
people of Irlam.
We may
return to the matter, or something similar, on Report, but having made
those points I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Question
put, That the amendment be
made:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes
9.
Division
No.
19
]
Smith,
Ms Angela C. (Sheffield,
Hillsborough)
Question
accordingly negatived.
Graham
Stringer:
I beg to move amendment No. 15, in
clause 97, page 79, line 16, at
end insert—
‘(3A) Where all
of the constituent councils of an integrated transport area agree a
resolution opposing the making of a local charging scheme the scheme
shall not be
made.’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment No. 16, in
clause 97, page 79, line 16, at
end insert—
‘(3A) Where a
majority of the constituent councils of an integrated transport area
agree a resolution opposing the making of a local charging scheme the
scheme shall not be
made.’.
Graham
Stringer:
The issues surrounding these amendments are
similar to those surrounding amendment No. 14, so I will not repeat the
arguments. The amendments talk about not going ahead with the scheme if
a majority of councils are against it, or not going ahead if all the
councils are against it, which would be possible although
unlikely.
I wish now
that I had tabled one or two more amendments along these lines to test
the Government’s view: one to see what would happen if one
council were against, and one taking up the idea put forward in a
different debate by the hon. Member for Lewes, speaking for the Liberal
Democrats, that perhaps the threshold should be a quarter of
councils.
The
point of principle is, how far should these schemes be allowed to go if
one, two, three or four councils—or 10, 20, or 30 per cent. of
councils—oppose to them? Should it be up to the integrated
transport authority, or should the integrated transport authority have
the power to take action as an unelected body to repress the views of
elected councillors? There should be a number, although that is open to
debate. Perhaps a majority, or all of them, is too high. If those
councils objected, given the deficiencies we discussed when we came to
secondary representation and possible co-option on to these bodies,
there should be some ability for one council or a number of councils to
have a veto over a proposed scheme. After all, councils are directly
elected.
Ms
Winterton:
May I say first that I think it unlikely that
an ITA will propose a scheme that is opposed by all its constituent
councils, given that at least a majority of the ITA membership is made
up of members from the constituent councils? Where a scheme was to be
made jointly between the ITA and a local authority or authorities, as
allowed for in clauses 96 and 99, those local authorities would need to
consent to the scheme being
made.
Amendment No. 16
would stop a charging scheme being made in an ITA region if the
majority of the constituent councils agreed that the charging scheme
was wrong for the area. That could damage local accountability and it
could mean that a local authority was prevented from making a charging
scheme just within its own area because the majority of local
authorities within the ITA area
disagreed.
However, I
know that concerns have been raised about the delegation of road
charging powers to ITAs. I am quite prepared to look at whether, at the
point of delegation, road charging should have to be agreed by a
majority of constituent councils, which answers some of the points made
by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley. I would be
prepared to look further at how the road charging powers could fit with
the governance arrangement and, if necessary, return to it on
Report.
3.15
pm
Graham
Stringer:
I thank my right hon. Friend for that helpful
reply. All the authorities are highways authorities, so effectively
each authority has a veto.
There is no body—neither the PTA nor the PTE can do
it—that can impose a scheme that charges or changes the traffic
management scheme or the road usage in those areas. Therefore, in
searching for the right figure, we are moving from every authority
having a veto to none having one. There is probably a line somewhere in
between—perhaps a majority is
one.
If I may, I will
give my right hon. Friend the arguments back. Although they are not
arithmetically exact, there is a certain political soundness to them
and there would be some relationship between the political make-up of
the integrated transport authority and that of the constituent local
authorities—they would be similar, if not exactly the same. It
might be that a lower figure than 50 per cent. is needed to stop the
Labour party or the Conservative party or whoever it might be
repressing those authorities against their wishes, given that there is
a democratic deficit in the
process.
In Greater
Manchester, the 10 authorities have a rule when they talk to each
other. It is not a statutory rule, but they need a two-thirds majority
of authorities to carry the scheme ahead, so if four—or perhaps
three—authorities are against it will not go ahead. It seems to
me that in an area with 10 authorities, having three opposed should be
sufficient to stop a scheme. That represents an enormous number of
people, and those representing them are directly elected. The figure
might be two in the west midlands. The difficulty with these
percentages is that the nice, round figures never quite correspond to
the situations in the six metropolitan authorities. Some areas, off the
top of my head, have five, seven, four and 10 authorities
involved.
I am thankful
for my right hon. Friend’s reply. I hope that we can discuss
these matters again and, on that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw
the amendment.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
Stephen
Hammond:
I beg to move amendment No. 293, in
clause 97, page 79, line 23, at
end insert—
‘(5) A local
charging scheme which has effect wholly within an integrated transport
area may only be made if the proceeds of such a scheme, if any, are to
be reinvested in the achievement of local transport policies
of—
(a) the charging
authority, and
(b) the
Integrated Transport Authority for the integrated transport
area.’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 294, in
clause 98, page 79, line 40, at
end insert—
‘(5) A joint
local charging scheme which has effect wholly within an integrated
transport area may only be made if the proceeds of such a scheme, if
any, are to be reinvested in the achievement of local transport
policies of—
(a) the
charging authorities, and
(b)
the Integrated Transport Authority for the integrated transport
area.’.
No.
295, in
clause 100, page 80, line 34, at
end insert—
‘(5) A joint
local-London charging scheme which has effect partly within an
integrated transport area may only be made if the proceeds of such a
scheme, if any, are to be reinvested in the achievement
of—
(a) local transport
policies of the non-metropolitan local traffic authority, or the
non-metropolitan local traffic authorities, by which the scheme is
made,
(b) local transport policies of the Integrated
Transport Authority for the integrated transport area,
and
(c) policies and proposals
set out in the transport strategy prepared and published by the Mayor
of London under section 142 of the Greater London Authority Act
1999.’.
No.
296, in
clause 101, page 81, line 20, at
end insert—
‘(4) A joint
ITA-London charging scheme may only be made if the proceeds of such a
scheme, if any, are to be reinvested in the achievement
of—
(a) local transport
policies of the eligible local traffic authority, or the eligible local
traffic authorities, by which the scheme is
made,
(b) local transport
policies of the Integrated Transport Authority by which the scheme is
made, and
(c) policies and
proposals set out in the transport strategy prepared and published by
the Mayor of London under section 142 of the Greater London Authority
Act
1999.’.
Stephen
Hammond:
Earlier, I said quite clearly that a national
scheme is both unpopular and unrealistic. However, I suspected that
some degree of road user charging, or increased use of tolls on our
roads, could be part of the package that tackles congestion and raises
money for infrastructure projects. Such schemes may well be taken up by
local communities on the basis of need and demand, but they require
local validation, as we have just discussed.
Some provisions in the Bill on
local road pricing are broadly to be welcomed. However, it is one thing
to make it easier for local authorities to plan and implement local
road pricing schemes, but quite another to take their arm behind their
back and twist it hard to get the promise of implementing them. That is
what the Government are
doing.
The Government
should not be using public funds to pressurise local authorities into
introducing these schemes—it should be up to local authorities
to decide how best to structure their bid for Government support to
tackle congestion, according to what they think is going to work best
in their area. If those schemes are local congestion schemes, they
should be locally validated and the funds raised should be reinvested
in local transport infrastructure. They are user charging funds and
technically not taxes. Money raised as a result of road charging
schemes where they are neutral, which is our policy, are user charges.
Therefore, they can be reinvested.
My right hon. Friend the Leader
of the Opposition recently announced that the Conservative party
proposes to free local authorities from the constraints that the
Government have put on them through funds ring-fenced for local schemes
within the transport innovation fund. Instead of forcing local
authorities to treat this money as a national congestion charging
budget, we will allow local people to use the money for new green
travel initiatives that really suit their communities without imposing
the prior specification on the
schemes.
My right hon.
Friend made the point that we will honour the transport innovation fund
commitments to local authorities that we inherit when we take over as
Government, but as we reach the end of the process more of those
available funds should be freed up for local communities to use on
initiatives that suit them best. I make that point because my
amendments are designed to ensure that the proceeds of local user
charging schemes are reinvested in local provision. The idea behind
that is very simple. I accept the
argument that one way to get people out of their cars to reduce
congestion is for them to see improvements in public transport
provision. It seems right that the charges that are raised from the
local congestion charging scheme should be reinvested in those local
improvements. I am concerned that these clauses will not necessarily
ensure that that happens. I accept that they go some way towards it,
but the Bill would be greatly improved if my amendments were inserted
in those clauses, stating that the local authority could proceed
towards implementing the scheme only if the proceeds were to be
reinvested in the achievement of the local authority’s transport
plans or in local transport
infrastructure.
Congestion
charging without the provision of attractive alternatives to the car
will at best merely raise the cost of living and at worst harm the
local economy. I fully support the point made by my right hon. Friend
the Member for East Yorkshire that the scheme should be neutral. It
should be neutral at a local level as well. I support the idea that the
moneys raised by congestion charging must be put towards securing local
improved
alternatives.
Mr.
Leech:
Will the hon. Gentleman explain how a cost-neutral
scheme could be introduced as a local
scheme?
Stephen
Hammond:
We, as a Government, would ensure that the
national framework was in place such that the scheme was neutral.
Therefore, it would be neutral at local level as
well.
I am convinced
that these amendments, which would ensure that the proceeds from the
schemes were reinvested in local transport, are the right way
forward.
Ms
Winterton:
The hon. Gentleman is quite right—this
is an important issue. Work carried out on the public acceptability of
road pricing has shown that the use of revenues from any local charging
scheme for reinvestment in improvements in local transport is an
important factor. That is why the Transport Act 2000 already requires
that all net revenue from all charging schemes be spent on facilitating
the achievement of local transport policies. It will be amended by the
Bill, because under existing legislation the requirement in schedule 12
to the 2000 Act says that the net revenue to be spent to facilitate the
achievement of local transport policies extends only to schemes made
within 10 years of the 2000 Act, and only for the first 10 years of the
scheme.
Through clause
114, the Bill will remove that restriction so that revenues from all
local schemes are invested in achieving local transport policies, and
not just for the first 10 years of the scheme. That certainly reflects
the importance, which we probably jointly agree on, that the public
attach to the revenue from local charging schemes being certain to be
spent on improving local transport.
I think that we are in exactly
the same place on this, and perhaps the amendment is merely probing in
that it is on the record that the changes we are making are as set
out.
Stephen
Hammond:
I am grateful to the Minister for that
explanation, and I take her reassurance that clause 114 will in effect
do what my amendments seek to do. I therefore accept that they are
unnecessary. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 97 ordered to stand
part of the
Bill.
3.26
pm
Sitting
suspended.
3.45
pm
On
resuming—
Clause
98 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause
s
99 to
102 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 5 agreed
to.
Clause 103
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
| 
