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Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to have secured this debate. I welcome the Minister to his new role. If he is as adept in this role as he was when performing his former duties, we will have a terrific roads Minister. He has had a baptism of fire, having already done two 90-minute debates yesterday, but I am sure he is coping admirably.
The A14 is a strategic route for UK plc. It is heavily congested in certain areas, and upgrading it is a national priority. The Government and councils are planning to invest £1.5 billion in upgrading the A14 and also the A1. However, the Government have singled out through-users of the A14 for tolling even though no other major road improvement scheme planned for the next 10 years is to be tolled. There is a risk that that will effectively amount to a tax on businesses in East Anglia—bad news for one of UK plc’s leading growth areas.
The A14 is a key route for traffic between the UK’s largest container port, Felixstowe, and the midlands. Its importance is recognised in its status as a trans-European transport network, or TEN-T. It also serves commuters to the city of Cambridge, home to the world-famous science park, which is a fast-growing economic hub. In the infrastructure statement in June, the Government recognised the importance of the A14 and announced that the start date for the work would be brought forward two years, to 2016—a decision that I and many others greatly welcome.
The infrastructure statement included 24 other road upgrades, which the Government will fund in their entirety. I am proud that the coalition Government are investing so heavily in infrastructure, especially since the previous Government, frankly, did not do enough of that. However, none of those 24 other routes will be co-financed by tolling. Roads supporting other economic hubs and routes with significant increases in capacity will enjoy fully funded upgrades, including the M25 improvements at Tilbury, the A1 in Yorkshire and, indeed, the proposed A1 from Newcastle to Scotland. It was suggested that the £1 billion M4 relief road in Wales would be subject to tolls, but that was ruled out very quickly—almost within 24 hours. Singling out the A14 for tolling appears arbitrary and somewhat unfair.
I represent the constituency of Suffolk Coastal, which includes the port of Felixstowe. However, this is not simply an issue of the potential threat to that port, which competes against many others along the south and east coasts. Tolling the A14 will have a wider impact on many businesses in Suffolk, Norfolk, north Essex and Cambridgeshire. It is therefore no wonder that business organisations and local enterprise partnerships in those areas have come out against the toll.
Two toll-free alternative routes are being offered for all traffic, although each will add considerable distance and time to journeys. The existing trunked A14 is to be de-trunked and key infrastructure is to be removed, so capacity is being removed. That is in stark contrast to the only other tolled trunk road in the country, the M6 toll, which offered a genuine new road.
The proposals also do not reflect the fact that at the point of proposed enhancement, between Cambridge and Huntingdon, HGVs from the port of Felixstowe currently make up just 3% of traffic and are dwarfed in number by local commuters. I am afraid that the perception in Suffolk is that East Anglian businesses will end up paying for easing congestion for Cambridge commuters.
Considerable effort has been made to shift more freight on to rail. The Government are helping with that, and I welcome their investment in the Ipswich chord and the work to be done at Ely junction, which will really help efforts to increase the amount of freight moving from road to rail. European funding available to TEN-T projects has also been secured for those projects. However, I am not aware that any EU funding has yet been secured for the proposed A14 enhancement. I would like to hear from the Minister what plans there are to secure such funding.
I shall go through some of the key stages of the proposal. When we looked at the consultation, we were disappointed that the Highways Agency refused to hold a consultation meeting in Suffolk. All the meetings were held in Cambridgeshire, even though there is reference after reference in the consultation document about, in effect, forcing HGVs on to the trunked road by making sure that that was the easiest route to use and making other routes quite difficult to use so that businesses would end up using the tolled roads. The Highways Agency made a bad mistake there, which I hope it does not repeat.
The solution in the consultation removes the existing A14, including demolishing the A14 bridge, therefore reducing road capacity. I would like the Minister to explain why the parliamentary answer given to me by his predecessor, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), talks about increasing capacity when it feels as if capacity is being reduced.
I mentioned the issues for Suffolk Coastal and the port of Felixstowe. One issue for local haulage businesses relates to DP World, just up the road at Tilbury. Improvements are being planned to junction 30 of the M25, which is close to that port. It is planned that those improvements will be paid for entirely by the taxpayer. Although I am convinced that the magnificent port of Felixstowe will continue to invest and to compete with DP World, imposing tolling charges on one of its key routes adds additional costs for customers and hauliers. There is a real risk, which does not seem to have been taken into account, that container lorries will simply divert to the Al and the M25 at the expense of Felixstowe. That is certainly bad news for the port of Felixstowe and supporting businesses, but it is also bad news for UK plc.
It has been suggested that a tolling element is required to help to pay for all these infrastructure changes, but there has been no indication of how long the tolls will be imposed for. Will it simply be for the financing of the project? I received a written answer suggesting that the anticipated revenue is £30 million per year, but there has been no indication of how long tolling will last.
Tolling has been suggested for only one part of the road, the new A14 carriageway, which is the bypass around Huntingdon. The project has been designed specifically to force through traffic on to the tolled road. However, no charges are planned for the brand-new local roads that will be built or for the enhanced A1.
It seems contradictory to single out that one stretch of the A14, as the existing A14 is rerouted and de-trunked, when the A1, which will also be significantly improved, will not be tolled. The Highways Agency suggests that de-trunking the A14 addresses the Department for Transport’s ambition to place the right vehicles on the right roads, which suggests that the DFT is, in effect, forcing traffic on to the toll road.
The two non-tolled alternatives for HGVs in the consultation will push a lot of traffic on to the A428 and the A1M. Quite a number of hauliers are already starting to use the alternatives, as we know. There is a risk that the toll will have the unintended consequence that we see considerably more traffic using that route. We will end up in a situation in which people in St Neots are going nuts about how much traffic is going through their town. The situation could be even worse for St Ives, a pleasant little market town, as the other proposed alternative is to go through St Ives and then around the edge of Huntingdon. I hope the Department and the Minister are aware of those possible unintended consequences.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. She is making a compelling case.
I was born in Suffolk. I have lived there my whole life and I have worked there for much of it. In that time, I have witnessed a dramatic growth in the logistics industry, based on the port of Felixstowe and mostly located along the A14 corridor. Does my hon. Friend agree that proposals such as this could have a significant negative impact on the logistics industry in Suffolk and on the Suffolk economy as a whole? Does she also agree that the Department for Transport needs to look again at this proposal and to consult properly with Suffolk businesses and Suffolk people, and that, if there is to be a toll road, there should also be a realistic alternative, although, ideally, the A14 should not be tolled at all?
Dr Coffey
I support my hon. Friend’s sentiments. The wider impact does not seem to have been assessed. In fact, there appears to be an assumption in the Government, which I think is wrong, that demand for using the A14 is completely inelastic to the toll. In fact, as the Department will know, there are basically two types of hauliers: first, those that definitely need to arrive on time; and secondly, those for whom cash flow is key. Adding to the cost of coming in and out of Suffolk and other parts of East Anglia creates a risk to our economy. This is an issue not just for Felixstowe, but for other parts of Ipswich, for Bury St Edmunds and for Haverhill, as well as for Lowestoft, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend.
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on a superb speech. She is saying everything that I would say.
Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)
Order. Will the hon. Gentleman address the Chair and not turn his back?
Mr Ruffley
My hon. Friend asks why there was not greater consultation with Suffolk. Does she agree that now, because, as she mentioned, other A roads in our region and other regions are not being tolled, there is a risk that there will be an A road apartheid in Suffolk—discrimination against business users, and other travellers into the county? Could that be deleterious to logistics companies in Bury St Edmunds, Stowmarket and Needham Market, in my constituency, and, equally importantly, in the golden triangle of Norwich, Ipswich and Cambridge? That is one of the engine rooms of growth for the whole nation.
Dr Coffey
My hon. Friend is right. I hope that the Minister realises that we are united across the county in our concern about the economic impact on the county and region, particularly in the light of our growth industries. My hon. Friend put that well.
To go into a little more detail, there were various options with the original consultation and it seems that we have taken up option 3, which includes the Huntingdon southern bypass scheme and removal of the A14 bridge, and whose estimated cost is £687 million, with a benefit-cost ratio of 2.15 and 2.26 million vehicle hours saved; and option 5, which also includes the bypass and would retain the trunked A14 through Huntingdon, with the addition of local roads.
The estimated cost of option 5 is £1.2 billion, nearly double that of option 3, with a BCR of 3.49 and 2.98 million vehicle hours saved. In both cases the eastbound saving is 19 minutes and the westbound saving is 14. The document gave, as a reason for introducing local access roads, allowing tolling to be put in more easily; so it seems that the scheme has been designed to make tolling easier, although introducing those local roads would increase complexity and cost at the Girton junction. The combination of the two options is coming out at £1.5 billion, but that sum is also due to enhancements to the A1, which were never part of the original proposals.
There are several issues to consider. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) wants to speak, so I shall draw my remarks to a close. The A14 needs to be improved. I thank the Government for investing so heavily in that key route for our region and for UK plc. However, users feel that they already pay their share; they do not want to be singled out to pay a toll while other parts of the road network continue to be fully financed.
I am proud to support the “No Toll Tax on Suffolk” campaign of the Suffolk chamber of commerce; it has gathered much momentum. I also welcome the backing of Suffolk county council, Suffolk Coastal district council, New Anglia local enterprise partnership and other business organisations. I am sure that the Minister will write to me if he cannot answer all the questions, but I ask him to listen to the concerns being put to him, because the issue is rousing Suffolk as we speak.
Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)
The convention of the House is that if a Member wants to contribute after the initial speech, they must have the agreement of the person who secured the debate and the Minister. I remind the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) that we must leave adequate time for the Minister to sum up.
Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)
Of course, Mr Leigh. Thank you; I intend to speak for only a minute or two. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) for giving me a little time, and the Minister for allowing me to speak. I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate.
Today there was another fall in the joblessness figures in Ipswich, which is a sign of a vibrant and important economy. Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire have a larger economy than Scotland’s. They are a vibrant part of the country, which has not fallen into recession and which is powering private sector-led innovative economic growth. That is a good thing, and the Government, for once, are investing in that success.
We are always bereft of infrastructure in the east of England. The A11 work that was promised many times by the previous Government is now delivered. The previous Government spoke at length about the A14. We are grateful for the Government’s consideration, and understand the financial pressure on the Treasury. We are also grateful for the fact that much has already been done to make the tolling proposals more reasonable than we feared.
Let us, however, be straight about the reason for what is happening: it is because Cambridge is such a remarkable success. We do not begrudge Cambridge that; it is part of the economic success story of the region. However, we in Ipswich, where many hauliers are based, are effectively being asked to pay a congestion charge for Cambridge, and that is wrong. It is wrong for economic success, which is more fragile in east Suffolk, to be impeded by Cambridge’s wild and ever growing success. We ask the Minister to reconsider alternative schemes that would put the cost on to the main users and the main reasons for the congestion, which do not include the hauliers of Ipswich, Felixstowe and east Suffolk.
Southampton will receive an electric spine under the Government’s bold infrastructure plans. The new Thamesport will receive road upgrades and an electrified link. However, Felixstowe, the largest container port in the country, does not, unlike Immingham, have an electric link by rail. In addition to our not having such a link, our principal route into the country will be tolled. That will be a double disadvantage for the country’s largest container port—the fourth largest in the world. It will have a significant impact on my constituents, many of whom are employed in the shipping industry. It may turn our joblessness figures in the other direction.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)
It is a joy to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) for giving me an early opportunity to examine the issue and make some comments.
The effectiveness of the United Kingdom’s strategic road network is vital to long-term economic growth, providing the means to move people and freight between our centres of industry and population. In June, the Government announced plans to increase the capital provision for critical transport infrastructure through an unprecedented programme of road investments worth more than £30 billion. Last year we announced proposals to upgrade one of the most congested sections of trunk road in England: the A14 between Huntingdon and Cambridge—a section that I know well. That 25-mile length of road carries up to 85,000 vehicles a day, which is significantly more than it was ever designed to accommodate, and is the reason why it has become such a frequent source of delay and frustration for motorists. Heavy goods vehicles make up an unusually high proportion of the traffic on the road, contributing to difficult and stressful driving conditions for other motorists and reducing average speeds still further. However, for commercial road users, congestion presents a cost to business efficiency, making journey times slow and unpredictable and increasing fuel consumption as vehicles are often forced to queue. I used to drive a road tanker and understand that problem all too well.
The A14 between Huntingdon and Cambridge is part of a strategic road corridor, which links the midlands to the east coast ports. In addition, it accommodates long-distance movements between the north of England and the south-east via the M11 motorway, as well as a growing volume of local and commuter traffic in what has become one of Britain’s most successful economic hot spots. That mix of local and long-distance traffic is expected to get significantly worse as the economy continues to recover, and one of the aims of the A14 scheme is therefore to separate those making local trips from those passing through the region.
I shall comment now on a couple of questions, so that I do not run out of time. My hon. Friend asked whether EU funding had been secured, and the answer is that it is too early in the development of the project to be able to say yes or no. As to traffic being forced on to other roads, it is interesting to note that the alternative route via the A428 and the A1 is 30 miles, as against 18 miles on the A14. That would be an additional 14 miles, and anyone driving a truck doing eight or nine miles to the gallon would—never mind the lost time—easily be able to work out that with the level of tolls we propose it would be a no-brainer to stay on the toll road and not increase pressure on other local infrastructure. Added to that, a shortage of residential property in Cambridge is fuelling house price inflation in the region, but new housing developments cannot proceed without better infrastructure. The A14 scheme provides the key to unlock a number of major housing developments along the trunk road corridor and is critical to the plans of the local authorities in the area.
The case for improving the A14 in the area is overwhelming. Other rail freight and public transport-based solutions have already been considered, and improvements, including the Cambridge guided busway, have already been made to help to take some of the load off the A14. Significant growth in traffic volumes on this section of the A14 is forecast, however, and without improvement the problem will only worsen. The Government therefore announced a funding commitment of £1.5 billion in June this year to support improvements to the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon, together with a challenging development programme that will see the proposed improvement scheme complete and open to traffic by the end of the decade.
The construction and maintenance of the United Kingdom’s trunk roads and motorway network is mostly funded by central Government. The introduction of tolls to fund or part-fund major capital investments in the road network is, however, a well established principle. Many of our estuarial bridge and tunnel crossings, including the Mersey tunnels, the River Severn crossings and the Dartford crossing, are tolled, but the M6 toll, which opened in December 2003 to bypass a heavily trafficked section of the M6 through Birmingham, is currently the only principal road in Britain to be tolled. Proposals to toll part of the A14 Cambridge-to-Huntingdon improvement were announced as part of the Government’s commitment in June.
The Government have previously stated that, although they have no intention to toll existing capacity on Britain’s trunk road and motorway network, where investment in new infrastructure constitutes a significant transformation of the existing route the option to introduce tolls on new sections of road is seen as a means of making the capital investment more affordable. Such a situation exists on the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon. The proposed scheme, at £1.5 billion, constitutes more than a 10th of the Highways Agency’s entire capital budget to the end of the decade and the transport and economic benefits of the improvement to the east of England, in particular the Cambridge sub-region, are significant.
The Government will still bear the brunt of the capital costs associated with the scheme, but it is fair that the road users who will benefit most should make a contribution to the construction costs. Although my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal discussed the impact of the charge on the people and businesses in East Anglia, the current levels of congestion and delay on this section of road already result in a significant cost to those living and working in the region. The local authorities and the local enterprise partnership in the Cambridgeshire area are highly supportive of the scheme and have also been asked to make a contribution to its development. As a result, some £100 million has been pledged by those bodies to offset some of the costs to Government of the scheme.
Tolling therefore makes the A14 scheme more affordable. An important principle underpinning the tolling strategy for the A14 is that tolls, while making a meaningful contribution towards the cost of the scheme, should not deter motorists from using the new road, particularly when making long-distance trips through the region. Tariffs will therefore be kept as low as possible, with light vehicles being expected to pay around £1 or £1.50 at current-day prices and heavy vehicles paying around double that cost. It is anticipated that tolls will be charged seven days a week, but that overnight trips will be free. That may encourage some commercial operators to use the road at night when it is expected to be less busy.
A second principle that remains fundamental to the development of this scheme has been to channel the right traffic on to the right roads, separating long-distance through-traffic from local traffic. The proposed scheme makes provision for local and commuter traffic to use a new side-road network between Cambridge and Huntingdon, which is toll-free and which eliminates much of the conflict between local and strategic users.
Most toll roads in Britain and throughout Europe require road users to stop at toll plazas to pay, but if we are to eliminate congestion on this section of road, the introduction of physical barriers is not the solution. The Highways Agency is therefore proposing a free-flow tolling system, in which vehicles are identified using cameras or tag devices and payments are made electronically or by smartphone without delaying road users. I should point out that we do not expect drivers to use their smartphones while driving. The system works in a similar way to the London congestion charge, using technology that is now well proven and collection systems that have proved to be effective in practice.
The tolling proposals for the A14 Cambridge-to-Huntingdon scheme were set out in a public consultation exercise that ended last weekend, together with the Highways Agency’s proposed scheme alignment. More than 5,000 people attended a series of exhibitions staged in towns and villages along the route and nearly 1,000 people provided their views by completing the Highways Agency’s online questionnaire. Discussions took place between the Highways Agency and the various local authorities in the surrounding area and the consultation received a high level of publicity in the press and broadcast media in Cambridge, Huntingdon and throughout the east of England. That was the first in a series of consultation exercises that will take place before a development consent order application is submitted by the Highways Agency in the autumn of 2014. Although it is a little early to comment on the results of the recently closed first consultation, it is clear that aspects of the tolling proposals have been high on the agenda—not least because of the activities of my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal.
Mr Goodwill
I asked my officials about that. The consultation was focused on the area where the road is to be built because of the effect on local communities. If anyone has had involvement in the High Speed 2 project, they will know that it is the communities near such projects that are likely to have the strongest views. Those further afield who will benefit from the scheme may well feed in their views but were not given the opportunity to contribute through road shows. I intend, however, to have regular meetings with representatives of the freight and logistics industry, as I am sure they will have views to voice.
Finding the right highway solution, which is both affordable and fair, remains a priority for the Government. The results of the consultation exercise, when they are published later in the year, should provide an important indication of public opinion and will help the Highways Agency as it develops the scheme proposals. It remains clear, however, that to do nothing to improve this overcrowded section of our trunk road network is really not an option and that traffic congestion in the Cambridge and Huntingdon area will worsen without improvement and will constrain economic growth in the wider east of England in decades to come.