House of Commons Hansard Debates for 2 Jul 2003 (pt 8)

Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Darling: I will give way to many Members, but I ask the hon. Gentleman to hold his horses for just one moment.

As the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale acknowledged, many of our road and rail problems stem from the fact that for 30 or 40 years, unlike most other European countries, we have not experienced a consistently high level of spending. We are now establishing that level. Until the Tories can say what they would spend, their policies will lack credibility.

Rob Marris: Is it not extraordinary that in a speech lasting 33 minutes—admittedly, he was generous in giving way—the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) did not once mention buses? What his speech did reveal was an obsession with railways. It seems that railways are important, but the Tories have no bus policy.

Mr. Darling: I hope my hon. Friend will not take it amiss when I say that I did not find that extraordinary. Given the Tories' record on buses during their 18 years in power, I think it was entirely par for the course that the hon. Gentleman had nothing to say on the subject—especially in the light of the difficulties caused by Tory policies in the mid-1980s, which we are slowly putting right.

Mr. McLoughlin: The Secretary of State wants us to say what our spending plans will be when the next general election is called, in 2005 or 2006—perhaps he will tell us which! Will he also tell us what the inflation and rail inflation levels in those two years will be, which will enable us to obtain the necessary information?

Mr. Darling: If I were the hon. Gentleman, I would be very wary about lecturing the Government on inflation. Inflation is at its lowest for 30 years, and compares rather well with the double-digit inflation that we had to endure in the 1990s.

Mr. Mark Francois (Rayleigh): Will the Secretary of State give way?

Mr. Darling: I will in a while, but I want to make some progress first.

Last year at the Conservative party conference, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said:

"We will earn public respect by the quality of our ideas, the strength of our convictions, and yes, the attractiveness of our policies."

Nearly a year later, the hon. Gentleman still has nothing to say about spending. His policies, announced yesterday in one or two newspapers, amount to support for the ability to travel on motorways at 80 mph, but only at night, and support for the removal of speed cameras.

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Evidence shows that the number of deaths and serious injuries has fallen by a third in areas where speed cameras have operated. The Tories should be cautious before embarking on a policy of removing them. Surely all Members on both sides of the House agree that the reduction in the number of deaths and serious injuries should continue, and, in particular, that we should stick to our target of halving the number of children killed or seriously injured in a 10-year period. If the law says that no one should travel faster than 30 mph in a built-up area, I should have thought that we would all support that policy. When people say that they are against speed cameras because motorists should not really be caught, I sometimes wonder whether they understand that speed can kill.

I recognise that some may be confused about what the speed limit is at different times of the day, but I think we all know that on occasion motorists exceed the speed limits on motorways. My guess is that if the limit were raised to 80 mph, people would be encouraged to think about driving at 90 mph.

It is, however, with spending that the hon. Gentleman seems to have substantial difficulties. I was surprised that both he and the leader of the Conservative party quoted the CBI report with such approval. I commend the report to all members. Page 2, for instance, says that there have been significant developments. It says that the Government are committed to widening the M1 and the M6. It commends the Government for setting up Network Rail. It refers to the introduction of congestion charges in London, which it supports. It mentions progress on urban transport, and comments that nine new roads have been opened since last summer and a further 10 are due to be opened this year. It also mentions that we are upgrading the A14 and are to construct a tunnel under Stonehenge, and refers to the progress we have made on the railways. It is all pretty good stuff, actually.

The one thing that I have not yet been able to find in the CBI report is a commitment to cutting public spending on transport. Indeed, it is rather the opposite. The report's main complaint is that we should be doing more, and doing it faster. When I spoke to the director general of the CBI yesterday, he expressed the hope that we would spend more. The leader of the Tory party said in December last year that the Tory Treasury team was

"looking at a target of 20 per cent. savings across the board in Government spending."

It will take more than reducing the head count in the SRA or anywhere else to get the sort of spending that most people would like to see in transport. Until the Conservatives tell us how much they are going to spend, their policy does not have any credibility. Perhaps when I give way to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, he will tell us, if the Tories are committed to a 20 per cent. cut in spending across the board, which they are because their leader has said it and their Treasury spokesman has said it, how on earth that will help transport spending.

Mr. Collins: I am delighted that the Secretary of State has finally given way. I will nail yet again the total and complete fabrication that the Conservative party is

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committed to across-the-board 20 per cent. cuts in spending. It is not true. The hon. Gentleman would like it to be true but it is not. He should debate with the Conservative party as it is, not as he would like it to be. He quoted from page two of the CBI document but seemed suddenly to come to a halt half way down the second column on page 2. Could that be because it goes on to say,

"the multi-modal study process has continued to progress slowly and a number of significant problems have not been tackled"?

It continues:

"Even where the government has announced its recommendations, it has failed to reach conclusions on some key schemes."

The top of page 3, which he was about to quote, then read to himself and realised that perhaps he had better not, says on rail:

"Performance levels . . . have yet to return to the levels of the late 1990s",

and adds that the Strategic Rail Authority's strategic plan was "deeply disappointing." Perhaps he should quote the whole document, not just bits of it.

Mr. Darling: If we had time, I would happily read the whole thing into the record, but if I did that the length of my speech might rival even the hon. Gentleman's. I will come on to the railways shortly, but in relation to the 20 per cent., I am sorry but I recall hearing the Conservative party leader just before the new year saying on the radio that "they"—the Tory Treasury team—were

"looking at a target of 20 per cent. savings across the board in Government spending".

I believed him. Conservative Members may choose not to. After all, the hon. Gentleman accused him when he stood for the Tory leadership of being a member of a barmy army, so perhaps he still does not have any confidence in him.

To give Conservative Members some idea, the 20 per cent. cuts would mean cancelling the whole strategic road programme. That is the order of magnitude that they are talking about. Until they can tell us how much they will spend, their policies lack some credibility.

Mr. Blizzard: Is not the key to look at what the Conservative party did when it was in government? In 1989, it brought out the famous "Roads to Prosperity" White Paper, yet by 1996 every scheme in East Anglia included in the White Paper had been withdrawn from the programme. Today in East Anglia, no one could go at 80 mph, even if the speed limit were raised, because we do not have many motorways and there are hardly any dualled roads.

Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend makes a good point. In 1990, the trunk road programme, which was entitled "Roads to Prosperity", announced no fewer than 500 schemes. By 1997, guess what the total was—it was 150. When Conservative Members give lectures about what we should have done and should be doing, they might remember that they had 18 years to look after the transport system and those 18 years are pretty pock-marked as far as their reputation is concerned.

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The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale went on to say that not a square metre of road was built in 2001. Actually, in that year, 16 major schemes were under construction, so it is simply not true to say that no work was going on. Indeed, since the hon. Gentleman raised the subject of roads, I said earlier that one of the problems that we face is that successive Governments have not invested enough. They have not planned ahead.

Many of our motorways are 30 to 40 years old. The M6, for example, was designed to carry 75,000 vehicles a day. On some stretches, it carries more than 150,000. That is why I announced expansion of capacity on the M1, M4, M5 and M6 last year. As I say, there are major road programmes under construction as well as a number of schemes designed to tackle bottlenecks in the system, which are now being completed.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned rail.

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