House of Commons
Friday 30 January 1998
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Road Traffic Reduction (United Kingdom Targets) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
9.34 am
Mr. Cynog Dafis (Ceredigion): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am proud to introduce this extremely important Bill. Its enactment will certainly constitute an historic turning point. I am aware that, in promoting the Bill, I am acting as a kind of spokesperson for the road traffic reduction campaign, which is broad-based and has been gathering momentum over several years. It is no longer a fringe concern, as it was once perceived. The campaign has, of course, included all along the environmental or sustainability organisations, which is not surprising. Along with the Green party, they have been the driving force behind the campaign, which has been supported by the Plaid Cymru parliamentary party.
Those organisations have been joined progressively by other more mainstream organisations including, for example, the Women's Institute, the Townswomen's Guilds, and the Confederation of Passenger Transport. In addition, 200 local authorities have declared support for the Bill, including my own. Crucial organisations concerned with health and the welfare of children have also joined the campaign. It is worth naming some of them. They include Barnardo's, the British Medical Association, the Child Accident Prevention Trust, the National Asthma Campaign and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. For practical and immediate reasons, those organisations see the need for the Bill and what will flow from it.
The campaign has been impassioned, determined, formidably organised, sometimes rumbustious, well thought out, sophisticated and well informed. Today is an important staging post in that campaign. The wide-ranging support for the Bill is symptomatic of the transformation that has occurred in public opinion and general consciousness. For 425 Members of Parliament to have declared support for the Bill, even for it to have been presented to the House of Commons as a credible policy proposal, would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. People were warning long before that that likely traffic growth was unsustainable and would cause serious problems, but they were largely ignored by mainstream opinion. Would that it had been otherwise. We must learn the lessons of that for the long term.
Had the story been otherwise, we might have avoided much of the massive damaging impact of unfettered road traffic growth. The patterns of road traffic are
unsustainable consumption writ large. Road building to accommodate ever increasing traffic swallows land, including areas of ecological value and special scientific interest. Extraction, transportation and refinement of petroleum imposes incalculable damage. The Sea Empress was just one example of that. We should also include the Gulf war and the power of Saddam Hussein as part of the major side effects of our dependence on petroleum. Of course, road traffic makes an important contribution. Combustion of petroleum produces 22 per cent. of greenhouse gas emissions in the United Kingdom.
There is scientific support, including from the energy technology support unit, for saying that the United Kingdom will be unable to meet its laudable target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent. by 2010 even with the technological improvements that we need for motor transport--I shall come to that later--without significantly reducing road traffic. Let us remember that stabilising CO 2 concentrations in the atmosphere will necessitate a 60 per cent. reduction in emissions globally. A cut of around 90 per cent. will be needed in the developed world. Tackling road traffic is the biggest issue in moving--as we must--towards sustainable consumption patterns.
Few of us have not been touched by the human damage caused by road traffic, with loved ones, friends or acquaintances killed or maimed. I have seen too many of my former pupils affected. There has been a steep rise in fatalities on the road over the past year in Dyfed and Powys, where I live, with many young people being killed. The accompanying social damage, particularly from heavy traffic in urban areas, is undeniably serious. Children can no longer play in the streets. Some 80 per cent. of children have bikes, but only 25 per cent. use them on the road, compared with 66 per cent. 20 years ago. When I was a boy, the problem was to get a bike. There was plenty of space on the road, where we used to play football and cricket. Those who were lucky got a bike when they were about 11 if they passed the scholarship. Unsurprisingly, there is evidence that alienation, crime and social isolation increase with traffic levels. We are dealing with a far-reaching phenomenon.
The economic costs of congestion are enormous--between £15 billion and £20 billion, according to the Confederation of British Industry. Maddison and Pearce put the cost higher than that in the study, "The True Costs of Road Transport", according to which the net economic cost is between £20 billion and £30 billion.
The effect on health has concentrated people's minds recently. A recent Department of Health report says:
Mr. Dafis:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that useful intervention. We need to move towards prevention of problems. We should prevent ill health rather than just treating it when it arises. Smoking is a major issue, but I must not pursue that diversion at the moment.
That is part of the sustainable development agenda, which is about putting things right in advance rather than allowing them to develop unfettered and trying to tackle the problems afterwards, which is a large-scale end-of-pipe solution. We need to do something at the entrance to the pipe, not just at its exit.
From even that brief selection from the enormous body of available evidence, we can reasonably conclude that Parliament has a responsibility to put in place policies to reduce road traffic. Until recently, it was commonly argued that traffic growth was inexorable and that the only answer was to accommodate it by building and extending roads. That changed with the report of the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment, published a few years ago. It showed clearly what should have surprised no one--that more and better roads lead to increased traffic, resulting in the same amount of congestion.
A recent study by London Transport and the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions says that vice versa also applies--closing roads can reduce traffic. Phil Goodwin, the Government's adviser on transport policy, found that, on average, 20 per cent. of traffic that used a road disappeared when it was closed. It did not move to other roads; it just disappeared--I think that he used the word "evaporated". People found other ways than the car to make the journey or decided not to travel.
Dr. John Marek (Wrexham):
I am particularly keen on that point. When the hon. Gentleman next corresponds with the 200 or so local authorities that support the Bill, will he bring it to their attention? Local authorities are remiss at taking it into account. Usually, they just try to make roads wider so that traffic can get along them more quickly.
Mr. Dafis:
That has certainly been the frame of mind hitherto. I shall see what I can do about contacting all those local authorities, and a few others besides. I hope
The more and better roads approach to solving congestion is a cul-de-sac--I hope that hon. Members will forgive the expression--although there are no doubt places where road improvements, and even new roads, may be necessary. Any such schemes pose unpleasant dilemmas. Most of us have come across such difficult choices on bypass proposals. The only way to reduce the number of dilemmas is to reduce road traffic. Road traffic reduction is an imperative.
It is important to see the measure not as a necessary but unpleasant process that we have to undergo in a hair shirt spirit, but as an exciting opportunity to create healthier and better communities and a crucial step towards sustainable development--no less than that. The flip side of the damaging impacts that I have described is the range of great benefits that would come from reducing road traffic. According to John Whitelegg, a 10 per cent. traffic reduction would lead to economic savings of more than 10 per cent.--he suggests between 10 per cent. and 20 per cent. According to Dr. Roberts of Great Ormond Street, when traffic volume falls, the reductions in child pedestrian death rates are greater than the reductions in traffic. Biodiversity, quality of life, health, safety, social cohesion and social inclusion would all gain from a reduction in road traffic. How much they would gain depends on how much we reduce. That is a matter for further consideration.
For the record, let me emphasise at this stage that we who support the Bill recognise the fact that we personally enjoy the advantages of being able to use cars and to have freight transported by lorry. We are talking about taming, not abolishing traffic.
Many people have expressed concern about the effects of road traffic reduction on employment. That is something that we cannot ignore, but the evidence suggests that the fear is misplaced. Friends of the Earth commissioned ECOTEC Research and Consulting to model the impact on employment of a 10 per cent. reduction from 1990 levels by 2010--that was the target in the original Bill.
ECOTEC found that there would be a net increase of 87,000 new jobs, taking into account not only losses in motor manufacturing, maintenance and infrastructure, but gains through growth in the cycle, bus and train sectors. We are talking about manufacturing, but also about the infrastructural development that would go along with the changes.
Friends of the Earth describes what would happen if we implemented a fully sustainable transport strategy, including investment in high technology to make the remaining road traffic--which we shall have for a long time--more environmentally friendly. It is vital to move towards technological innovation, to make cars on the road more environmentally friendly.
If we did that, taking into account the investment that would go with it, plus the increase in car leasing that Friends of the Earth foresaw, the net employment gain would be as much as 122,000. There would be far fewer losses in the car-based industries, because people there would work on the improved technology and on new types of cars and lorries.
The remaining question for many people now will be: can that be done? They think that it ought to be done; they can see the imperatives for doing it and the great advantages, but they still ask, "Is it feasible to reverse traffic growth, and even to reduce traffic by 10 per cent. by 2010?"
The Deputy Prime Minister will be familiar with the work of Professor John Whitelegg, now of the school of the built environment at Liverpool John Moores university. I believe that he advised the Deputy Prime Minister before the election, when the right hon. Gentleman was not in government.
John Whitelegg has written a report showing that the 10 per cent. reduction target in the original Bill--it is not in the present Bill, and I shall talk about that in a moment--can be achieved by implementing various tried and tested policies, without any reliance on increased petrol duty. We already have higher petrol duties, but John Whitelegg says that even without those, the targets could be achieved through other methods, both in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
Recognising that rural areas require a distinctive approach, Professor Whitelegg says:
"We have clearly underestimated the true overall effects of air pollution."
It says that the deaths of between 12,000 and 24,000 people a year are "brought forward"--a euphemism for people dying sooner than they would otherwise--and an extra 14,000 to 24,000 people are admitted to hospital because of air pollution. Children, the elderly and the poor suffer most. In an enlightened editorial a couple of weeks ago, The Guardian said:
"Those most at risk are those who are condemned by age or poverty to live near congested roads, to cross them on foot and to shop on their pavements."
According to Dr. Ian Roberts of the child health monitoring unit at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, more than 6 million children are at risk because
of the volume of traffic on our roads. Children in social class V are at five times more risk than those from social class I. A recent study in Edinburgh showed an even greater disparity. The children of families without cars suffer from the activity of those with cars. That is a significant social class issue. Dr. Roberts links the problem with declining physical activity, leading to obesity and likely
"adverse effects on children's mental and emotional health."
Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South):
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, historically and for the future, such measures are more important for improving the nation's health than direct health provision? Some of the arguments are akin to those for dealing with tobacco advertising rather than putting on taxes.
"We can be confident of a 33 per cent. reduction in urban areas".
As 91 per cent. of the United Kingdom population is urban, that would mean a 30 per cent. overall reduction even if rural areas were exempted from the traffic reduction policies outlined in his report.
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