Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Grand Committee

The threat of significant road expansion under the Government’s plans calls for effective environmental regulation—rather more than is provided for in existing legislation—and this is the obvious opportunity. The Bill does not contain new requirements for the strategic highways company to improve air quality or to increase cycling or any aspects which may be conducive to improving the environment. The impact assessment identifies a risk that environmental and social goals will not be balanced with economic priorities. The amendment therefore proposes duties as to specific outcomes; for example, on air quality and, as my noble friend Lord Whitty just indicated, on safety. Of course, that is difficult include in primary legislation, and I have no doubt that the Government will say that such matters are best dealt with in licence and performance specification, but I want some assurance that the Government are taking these issues seriously.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, in supporting Amendment 15, first, I apologise for not being able to speak at Second Reading. In the mean time, the Minister was kind enough to answer a Written Question from me on the design criteria to be employed by the successor to the Highways Agency. I declare an interest as an honorary fellow of the RIBA and as president of the South Downs Society—that comes in later.

My noble friends have quite rightly stipulated in Amendment 15 that social, economic and environmental objectives must be explicit. Of course, these cannot be achieved without proper design, but not all highway engineers seem to know that. I ask the Minister to answer on how the crucial role of design can be made explicit. A Written Answer to me, although very helpful, did not go quite as far as that. I should add that, if she cannot give me a good guarantee, I think I ought to pursue the subject on Report.

Why does it matter? The past is one reason. Successive highways schemes have made roads fit for motor vehicles and little else. Highways can improve growth and well-being, if well designed, or they can destroy it through environmental impact, isolating communities from amenities and creating pollution and noise; in short, by not paying proper attention to the total place through which they go.

I would like to draw attention to the latest report, published last month, by the Royal Town Planning Institute, titled Planning Horizons: Thinking Spatially. It states that,

“transport policy is an area where spatiality and the interrelationships with these other issues have often been neglected”.

Those other issues are access to goods, jobs, education, health and other services. I looked at the impact assessment, anticipating that I would see some really interesting quantifications of these admittedly hard to define elements. However, the impact assessment is really quite narrow, and I would urge the Minister to provide a more developed assessment of what impact on national well-being highways can have and how the successor to the Highways Agency is going to achieve this through the use of design, which, as I have said, is really the only way it can be achieved.

Finally, I just want to add that the proposal of my noble friend Lord Whitty for Clause 1(4) to have a completely different agency would enable this kind of approach much more easily. It would not be so much an RIS as a TIS; that is, a transport integrated strategy.