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Mr. Greg Knight (East Yorkshire): Does my hon. Friend agree that the facts do not support the assertion made in an intervention by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Bennett)? In France, for example, motorway speed limits are 80 mph, and there is no evidence of more accidents occurring there. In Germany, I believe there is no upper limit on the major motorways.
Mr. Syms: That is true, but this country has a tradition of having speed limits. We should reconsider the whole issue of speed limits and perhaps consider variable speed limits.
Thinking on traffic lights is fixed. They often operate for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and one can often sit at a traffic light at 2 am while driving to one's constituency through Twickenham. We have a mania for putting traffic lights on roundabouts, which are supposed to keep traffic flowing. It might be appropriate for traffic lights to operate briefly at certain times of the rush hour if there is a need to allow people on to a roundabout, but I cannot understand why such traffic lights operate 24 hours a day and seven days a week, because that disrupts traffic.
The route from the motorway network to central London is one of the most congested because of all the traffic lights through which one must pass. Traffic lights should be audited to determine their impact on the system. The timing of traffic lights in London was changed before the Mayor introduced congestion charging, and such a measure can have a real impact on the speed of traffic.
Mr. Greg Knight: My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech and some powerful points, especially about the unnecessary waste of human time and increased pollution that are caused by vehicles being forced to stop at a red traffic light when no vehicles are coming in the other direction. That happens because the lights are on a timer. Does he agree that some states in America have the right idea, because during non-rush hour periods traffic lights flash amber in every direction, which means that motorists may cross them? The lights give a warning to take care.
Mr. Syms: I am not sure whether I would like to try that, but my right hon. Friend makes a good point. I know that motorists in America can sometimes turn left on a red light if the way is clear.
My essential point is that we must consider the management of our road network and roads much
better. We should have a system to examine routes from A to Z and audit the number of traffic lights and roundabouts, the design of the road and speed levels all along the route to determine whether traffic could be allowed to move faster without the requirement for massive investment in more concrete and tarmac. That might require a review of bus lanes, because although they increase the speed of buses they knock back other traffic. We should look at everything and make an assessment of specific routes. On narrow sections of road, especially, there are occasions when a few cars parked on the side can knock traffic back, so we need more active management. I am not sure what the system should be, but I hope that Members on our Front Bench and the Government will consider it.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington): How would the hon. Gentleman's review reconcile faster flows of traffic with the need for pedestrians to cross the road?
Mr. Syms: Stakeholders, to use that terrible word, must be considered. There are always competing interests—pedestrians, cyclists, buses and cars—and a judgment must be made. We sometimes do things in an itty-bitty way. One may drive into London through three or four boroughs with different policies, and a more comprehensive view might result in better policies.
The Government have neglected the motorist for too long. I am glad that they are having a deathbed repentance and that they are taking the issue more seriously. I caution against hitting the motorist with higher taxes, not least because it is a rather regressive way of dealing with people. Anybody from the west country knows that many people who live there are on marginal incomes but need vehicles to support their employment and look after their families. The importance of motoring has been underestimated in recent years and it must be a central issue. We can do many things without building vast motorway networks and we need creative thinking. As I said, 24-hour and seven-day thinking on speed limits and traffic lights makes the situation worse. If we were a little more creative, we might improve the lot of our fellow motorists and passengers.
2.45 pm
Mr. Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North): The Conservatives are rather shooting themselves in the foot by initiating a debate on transport because most of our problems derive from the policies that they pursued when they were in office. I make no apology for reminding them about rail privatisation and bus privatisation and deregulation because the effect of those measures is to an extent still with us. I would go further than my colleagues on the Front Bench by reversing those policies, and I think that we shall do that one day.
I shall certainly support the Government's amendment and oppose the Tories' motion, but I think that I would delete the word "botched" from the amendment. There is constant reference to the privatisation being botched, which implies that the privatisation of such an industry as rail could be a good
thing. That is not the case, and we would make more progress if we deleted the word "botched" from the Government's lexicon for the foreseeable future.
Mr. John Horam (Orpington): If the privatisation policies were so bad, why have the Government not reversed them?
Mr. Hopkins: I imagine that the Government have other priorities, although I am doing my best to persuade them to do such a thing. Indeed, I urge hon. Members of all parties to sign the early-day motion that I tabled this week calling for railways to be brought back into public ownership. The railway systems that work best are integrated state systems that are backed fully by government, such as those in France and elsewhere. As a member of the all-party rail group, and the former all-party rail freight group, I have made many visits abroad to see good railway systems in operation.
Tragically, our railways have received poor investment for many decades but the cost of replacing a mile of railway track has increased by four times since privatisation. That is a direct result of privatisation and the contracting rip-offs that continue to this day. The Government are gradually inching their way back toward common sense and I urge them to go further in that direction. The Strategic Rail Authority's decision this week not to give Connex back its franchise is another step in the right direction, and I look forward to the SRA garnering further franchises as a basis for pubic ownership and future reintegration.
In a sense, the privatisation was botched because it split track operations from train operations. I think that everyone realises that that was a big mistake. The idea was that there could be a degree of competition among train operators on the infrastructure provided, but there is plenty of evidence showing that that does not work. Clearly, we cannot have a situation in which trains race each other on parallel railway lines. Buses can race each other on the road, at least, but that is not possible on railways because there is one track and one train. It would be much better for the rail system to be planned and operated in the public interest with appropriate subsidies if necessary.
Andrew Bennett: Surely my hon. Friend is aware of the racing that used to take place between Scotland and London to determine whether the east coast or west coast service was the fastest.
Mr. Hopkins: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding me of that. My great-great-great-grandfather used to drive the Flying Scotsman. Sadly, he died in a railway accident—he was probably going too fast.
In general terms, with that notable exception, trains do not race or compete against each other on the same track. The service should be planned and run in the public interest and subsidised if appropriate. Everything that is done should be made accountable to the House and, through us, to the public. We had that system before but the problem with the days of British Rail was that we did not invest sufficiently, so our railways lagged behind those on the continent of Europe for a long time. We are starting to address that problem but we must go further.
There has been emphasis on roads, but they are often congested.
There are two reasons for that. The first is that there is too much traffic. The second is that roads, especially motorways, are constantly being repaired because of the damage caused not by cars but by heavy freight.
I am a great supporter of freight transport by both road and rail. However, the mathematical formula—the fourth power law of road damage—shows that damage to roads increases by the fourth power of the axle weight. So if one doubles axle weight, one multiplies road damage by 16 times, and so on. That is a problem. If we get significant amounts of freight off the roads and on to rail, we will make a difference not just to the environment but to road congestion and the massive expenditure that comes out of the Treasury' pocket—the public purse—to pay for repairs. There will also be a smoother flow of traffic in general. Freight would be more reliable, especially from more remote industrial areas to the channel tunnel, if we invested more in rail freight facilities.
I have long been a supporter of the Central Railway scheme to provide a direct dedicated freight link from the industrial north to the continent of Europe. A reliable roll-on-and-go service, operating every quarter of an hour, with full-scale trailers on trains, would be tremendously popular with road hauliers and the people who suffer from the problems caused by traffic. It would be a boon to Britain and could breathe new life into the economies of the north midlands and Scotland, and I am paying particular attention to the interests of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who represents a Scottish constituency. That scheme would make a difference to our economy.
We are peripheral to Europe. Unlike Germany and France, we are not in the golden triangle. We have to ensure that our transport freight links to the continent are effective. The channel tunnel is underused, and there is scope for it to carry more freight. That would transform the economics of channel tunnel operations. The passenger forecasts for the channel tunnel have been proven to be overblown. There is scope for more freight to go through the tunnel. A direct link between industrial areas of Britain to the tunnel, which would accommodate full-scale trailers on trains, would benefit everyone. There is a scheme to that effect and I hope that my hon. Friends back it. At the very least, I hope that they support the principles behind it.
I have always been concerned about road safety. I used to wear a seat belt before they were compulsory, much to the annoyance of some of my friends. They used to think that I did not trust their driving, but my response was, "I trust your driving. It's the person who's going to crash into us that I don't trust." They thought that was a smart answer. I used to wear a crash helmet when I rode my motorbike. I have always tried to be sensible about drinking and driving, even before the law was tightened. Those are sensible things to do, but not everyone is sensible. Unfortunately, we have to encourage people to be sensible by applying a law from time to time.
If we relax the laws on driving, a minority of drivers will be irresponsible and drive too fast, which will ruin our reputation as a nation of safe drivers, with a low accident rate. I hope that my hon. Friends will not listen to the siren voices that call for a relaxation of our sensibly strict controls on driving and safety.
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