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The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)
It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate, Mr Chope, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) on securing it. He is a doughty champion of his constituents and a great friend of mine.
As my right hon. Friend described, the A34 has been of concern for a considerable length of time. He was right to draw attention to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), who raised and discussed this issue with me just this summer, following the tragedies that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage drew to the Chamber’s attention. It is absolutely right, at the outset, that I offer my condolences and sympathies to all those affected by those dreadful events he has highlighted today. Sympathy matters, but support matters more. It is really important, for those people and others, that we show that support; I think Disraeli said that
“justice is truth in action.”—[Official Report, 11 February 1851; Vol. 114, c. 412.]
We need action, because it is just and right that we give proper consideration to the A34.
First, let me deal with a matter that the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) raised—I have lots of notes here but I will refer to them only fleetingly, because I do not want to lecture people who already know more than most about details relating to the A34. However, I want to say, following his remarks, that I will review safety on the A34. I will take a close look and commit to a study of safety on the road. I have been thinking about the issue for some time; discussing it with my officials, given that this has been a matter of detailed concern, as I say, for a considerable time; and I have reflected on representations that have been made to me by Members in this Chamber and others and feel that we now need to look at safety on the A34.
Secondly, I am absolutely committed to the meeting that has been mentioned twice. It needs to be with all interested parties—by that I mean not only all colleagues who have a direct involvement and interest in these matters because of their constituency responsibilities, but Highways England and my officials. This round-table meeting should involve a genuinely open-minded debate about what more can be done.
A series of steps can be taken, so let me rehearse those in detail. I have no doubt that further technological improvements that we can make to this road will make a difference. Having looked at the map of the area, I am particularly conscious of the problems in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage because of its topography. This is a relatively small road with hilly terrain, carrying a large number of HGVs, not least to and from the port of Southampton and the south coast. For that reason, it is sometimes a difficult road to navigate.
There may be further technological changes we can make. I am happy to write to hon. Members following this short debate to rehearse in detail some of the improvements that have been made. Many safety improvements have been made over the last five or six years by the Government, Highways England and prior to that, the Highways Agency, as hon. and right hon. Friends and Members know. However, we may be able to go still further with technological changes, by which I mean such things as interactive signage, gantries, and more information being provided to drivers that will compensate and mitigate some of the challenges associated with the topography that I described.
That being the first thing, the second thing was referred to by my right hon. Friend. We are, of course, looking at the Oxford-Cambridge expressway, which is part of the Government’s roads strategy. He made clear that the provisional study—the interim report—was published in August and he will know that the final report is due to be published later this year. Inevitably, that will include considerations about this stretch of road and will give us the opportunity to think through what more can be done in a reasonably short time. I take the point made by the right hon. Member for Oxford East about 2020 and know that hon. Members, local authorities and others will want more urgent work. When we have that report, I am prepared to look, on the back of the round-table discussions, at what more urgent work could be committed to as part of the road investment strategy phase 1 and consistent with the Oxford-Cambridge expressway report.
However, I want to go further. The call has been made for a still more strategic piece of work—my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) described this as “a motorway”—and I think we need to think that through. I suspect that would be part of the road investment strategy as it moves into its second and third phases, because it requires a different scale of work, but none the less, the significance of the road is not lost on me. We may be able to look in the road investment strategy as it moves forward at that still more fundamental piece of work on this stretch of road.
Safety and congestion are the two issues that have been raised in this debate, and they relate closely to each other. A road that is congested does not only cause inconvenience to the local traffic, and hon. and right hon. Members will know that we are committed to a number of local schemes in Oxford. We are working with the LEP, which I emphasise is absolutely at the heart of making representations on this matter, and alongside local authorities to ease congestion around Oxford. However, the safety issues are there and further south on the road, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage and beyond. Looking at the separate but related issues of safety and congestion requires the lateral, innovative thinking that I have tried to illustrate and outline in this brief response.
In summary, we will continue to work with all the interested parties concerned and continue to invest in the local schemes that ease congestion around Oxford; I agree to the round-table, open-ended meeting of the kind that I described to seek views from all those who know and care about this road; I am happy to review safety on the road—there are criteria for that, but I have never been a man who is constrained by criteria imposed by others, as you know, Mr Chope. I am prepared to say that I have made the decision and announce now that I will institute that safety review. I am also prepared to look at further technological change to improve safety on the road; happy to consider what can be done in the road investment strategy in its first phase to mitigate some of the risks associated with this route; and prepared to consider what more strategic changes might be made at a later stage of the road investment strategy as it moves to phases 2 and 3.
I thank my right hon. Friend for drawing these matters to my attention once again. I hope he feels that the debate has been worthwhile in pressing a Minister who is not reluctant to use these kind of debates to reconsider Government thinking, and in pressing this Minister to take action necessary not only to avoid the tragedies that I mentioned, in amplifying my right hon. Friend’s words of sympathy at the outset, but to improve the wellbeing of the people in this part of our country.
Question put and agreed to.