Heavy Commercial Vehicles in Kent (No. 1) (Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Pendry Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pendry (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish to declare a kind of interest in this debate. I am a resident of the Isle of Thanet in the county of Kent, and as such have an interest in some of these important issues, especially those before the House today: the commercial and environmental aspects that impinge on the county of my birth—St Peter’s, Broadstairs, to be exact. Some noble Lords will have other, very meaningful reasons for entering this debate, and I look forward to hearing those and, indeed, the Minister’s reply to this short debate. As a remainer, I would have hoped that the instruments before us were unnecessary—although there have been traffic problems surrounding the outskirts of Dover for as long as I can remember—but we are where we are.

In this short debate I wish to dwell on the amount of money that has been expended in such a prolific way, reflecting the level of stupidity, when taking these three instruments together, mindful of the fact that no doubt the problems envisaged may never take place at all. I wish to dwell on that narrow yet important part of the instruments before us today. In that regard, I recently asked some Parliamentary Questions of the Minister sitting on the Government Bench today. I was concerned about the costs to the taxpayer that have already been expended in relation to the Manston Airport project. As an aside, I am sure everyone here will know that Manston Airport is the largest airstrip in the country and played a great part in the Battle of Britain in the Second World War.

The Answers to the Questions that I put to the Minister concerning the Manston Airport project were that

“between August 2015 to June 2020, the Department for Transport (DfT) has paid a total of £19.4m for the use of Manston Airfield as a lorry park”—

it might be of interest to noble Lords that not one lorry has been parked at Manston during that period—and that some £10.3 million has been expended

“as part of the EU Exit no deal preparation contingency planning and £9.1m for the use of Manston Airfield for business as usual”,

whatever that means,

“and Operation Stack. This has enabled DfT to use Manston Airfield to hold HGVs for traffic management purposes”

in the event of a dispute. Yes, Minister, the money spent is of concern, but imagine the net effect on the villages of Manston, Minster and Monkton, and the surrounding areas, of what they have had to put up with for over a year. What the Minister’s department refers to as a temporary backup holding lorry facility causes disruption not only to the villages mentioned but to traffic generally. The department described the measure as temporary—needed for a period of six months based on current planning, it was said—when in fact it has been going on for some 18 months.

That is not the end of the disruptions taking place for those people: there is also the extra cost of flood- lighting, security and road diggers, while the entire airfield has been covered in cones for months for no obvious reason. For those reasons, I hope the Minister will respond and give some very good explanations for why so much money has been expended unnecessarily on these projects.