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Mr. Harold Best (Leeds, North-West): I should also like to place on record my appreciation of the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Dafis), for bringing the Bill forward. It is universally approved of. The word universal is relevant, because the Bill is about politics--universal and personal.
Five of my seven grandchildren suffer from asthma to varying extents. That causes particularly stressful problems. Anyone who has seen a victim in terrible distress with that childhood ailment knows how panicking and damaging it can be. One of my grandchildren lived in Newcastle in his early years. He recently moved to Morpeth, which is 15 or 18 miles from Newcastle. Suddenly, his health improved. The air is cleaner and the problems of pollution are fewer. He found it markedly beneficial going to a local school.
There is always a down side. My daughter moved to find some fresh air for my grandchild, but she now has to travel to Newcastle for work by motor car, whereas she previously went on a bicycle. There are swings and roundabouts. That shows the need to balance public transport with people's needs.
I have had personal experience of that. Since my election on 1 May, my constituency office has been approximately six miles from Leeds city centre. I try to use the buses. One night, as I was waiting with my assistant to catch the bus back home, we watched bus after bus going in the other direction, out of the city. After 50 minutes, not one had come back. I wondered whether it was like a Monty Python sketch and there was a gigantic hole further along the route down which all the buses were disappearing.
The next day we wrote to the passenger transport executive to complain. We got a reply within a few days saying that the problem was caused by traffic congestion in the city centre. I found that an inadequate reply to my complaint about where the buses had gone. Only later, when one of my constituents complained about a similar event and said that empty buses had passed her by out of service, did it come to light that the bus company's solution to being behind schedule was to run the buses back out of service and empty, leaving stranded passengers all along the route into the city centre. That is an idiotic way to run a service, because it is not a service. The company could afford to do that because it was receiving substantial sums from the public purse to support the service. Passenger income did not seem to matter.
I gather from all the contributions that I have heard today that, given the nature of the Bill, no one will reasonably object to its contents. I have undertaken to mention very few of the things that I originally intended to talk about, to make time for one more Back Bencher to speak.
However, there is one element of the problem that I owe it to my constituents to mention. Many hon. Members have mentioned the problems generated by school-related traffic, and we should be most careful about what happens if and when it is felt necessary to
close a school. We have been involved in several school closures, especially closures of primary schools, because numbers have fallen.
We must be careful that as a result of closures, we do not generate additional journeys, with people having to take children further by car to school. Our Victorian forefathers understood the need for schools to be within easy walking distance of their would-be pupils, and we should return to that aim.
Mr. Ian Stewart (Eccles):
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to participate in this important debate; I understand the time pressures. It is unfortunate that not one Conservative Back Bencher is in the Chamber to hear the end of the debate and the Minister's comments. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Dafis) on bringing the Bill before the House.
Eccles, my constituency, is one of the three Salford seats, criss-crossed by one of the world's finest motorway, trunk and local road webs. That web is vital for communications and commerce, but the paradox is that it exacerbates the problem of increasing road transport and the resultant pollution and health problems.
Eccles, Salford in particular, and the north-west of England as a whole have some of the oldest and most used industrial roads in the world. It is not uncommon to look out of one's office or home and see an unplanned crater in the road, with the resultant standing traffic.
We are not only increasingly conscious of the nuisance and frustration that that causes for industry and the public alike, but we are more acutely aware of the devastating effect on the health of constituents and the pressure that that places on the national health service.
Two main trunk roads lead into Salford from the west--the A6, which goes through Swinton and Pendlebury, and the A57, which passes through my own town of Irlam and Cadishead, through Barton and Winton into the centre of Eccles.
I should like to draw to the Minister's attention what happened recently, when there were road works, both planned and unplanned, on all the major trunk roads, and the Highways Agency gave notice that a major section of the M602, which runs into Salford from the west, was to be closed for repairs.
That meant that all the roads on the west side of town were either closed or had major repairs taking place on them. I wrote to the Highways Agency to ask what liaison had taken place with the city of Salford highways department. The Highways Agency has yet to respond to my letter, but the principle of maximum liaison between the various agencies, and of the clearest and highest-quality information for the public and industry, is essential.
I support the Government's strategic approach to both trunk and local road policy. I believe that we need a strategic but flexible approach that allows resources to be directed quickly to unforeseen problems.
In my town of Irlam and Cadishead we have an unfinished bypass that emerges at the worst bottleneck in the village of Cadishead. The town is a one-road ribbon development along the north bank of the Manchester ship
canal. There is only one road in, and one out. That is already unacceptable and dangerous, and it could deteriorate into a state of collapse when the massive shopping city, the Trafford centre, comes on stream.
We need a flexible strategy that allows cities such as Salford either to receive funds from Government or to raise the necessary revenue locally, at the same time as we develop an integrated transport system. I support the Greater Manchester bid to run a pilot integrated transport system. It should be noted that some local authorities, such as Salford, to their credit, anticipated the new Labour Government's prioritisation of education and health by investing more than the Governments in the previous 18 years allowed in education and social services.
The city of Salford is to be congratulated, but it is all too conscious that those priorities have meant that, among other services, highways have suffered underinvestment. The situation is now chronic, and special support and consideration must be given to areas of special need, such as Salford and other places throughout the country, where chronic problems may deteriorate into a state of collapse in the all too near future.
I have highlighted the need for maximum planning liaison and public information; a parallel trunk and local roads strategy that allows for the unexpected; and a recognition that local authorities such as Salford may need special understanding, funding or permission to raise funds locally. Above all, most of those issues should not be seen in isolation. As well as an integrated transport policy, we must have an integrated society. That means that we must consider all the knock-on effects of policy on our constituents.
Mr. Christopher Chope (Christchurch):
I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Dafis) on his success in the ballot and on being so persistent on this subject.
I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mr. Fraser) on an eloquent plea for common sense and on the balanced judgment that he displayed. He drew attention to local issues in Wareham and Poole, including the need for investment in the new Poole bridge and the important role of the car in an area heavily dependent on tourism and with a largely elderly population. As my constituency is in the same county as his, I understand many of his points.
I add my plea for the link between the A31 and Poole bridge to be completed and for the bridge itself to be constructed. Transport by sea is an important part of the overall picture. Poole harbour brings in much traffic from overseas, and if we do not find the routes to enable it to get to other parts of the country without affecting the residents of areas such as Ferndown and Poole, it will be very bad news for them. Many lorries en route to Poole harbour are destroying the quality of life in Ferndown, in my constituency. That would not happen if the new link road for which we have been calling were constructed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) made a realistic speech, calling for restraint in traffic growth rather than an arbitrary reduction overall, which she said was unrealistic. She identified the need for specific measures to back any targets and expressed a concern, shared by so many Conservative Members, about the Government's cavalier attitude to green-belt issues, and the consequent fears among her constituents and many others throughout the country.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) brought an international dimension to the debate by stating from his experience overseas where some measures have worked and where others have not worked to reduce traffic, and traffic congestion in particular. He argued against arbitrary targets and expressed concern about an adverse impact upon the economy in Shropshire if arbitrary targets to reduce traffic were introduced there. He contributed in a way that will be telling in future, in the debate about whether we should engage in road pricing as a means of curbing congestion.
Earlier this month, the joint sponsors of the Bill--the Welsh nationalists, the Green party and Friends of the Earth--sent a circular letter to their supporters, enclosing a copy of what was described at that time as the latest version of the Bill, together with a commentary upon it. Although the Bill had not been published, I presumed that it would be in similar terms to the version sent with that letter. How wrong that presumption was.
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