Oral Answers to Questions

Dominic Raab Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Norman Baker]

That is not ruled out. Obviously we do not want to go to the statute book as the first option, but there is a serious problem, and if Ministers are convinced that that option is a way to deal with metal theft, we will consider it seriously. We also have to ensure that we do not simply close down one avenue and see the stolen metal diverted somewhere else.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

12. What steps she is taking to repair roads.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

The Department is providing £3 billion over the four years from 2011-12 onwards to local highway authorities in England for roads for which they are responsible. On top of that, we provided an additional £200 million in March for English authorities to repair damage caused by the winter. The Highways Agency is responsible for operating, maintaining and improving the strategic road network in England, and in this financial year its budget for maintenance is £840 million, excluding costs associated with private finance initiative projects.

[Mr Raab]

According to a survey published by Autocar, the last Government left Surrey with the most potholes in the country, while the Federation of Small Businesses reports that poor roads cost a quarter of small businesses at least £2,500 each year. Will the Government confirm their continuing support for repairing Surrey roads through the local sustainable transport fund?

[Norman Baker]

I am happy to confirm that the Government are committed to doing what we can to help local authorities with road maintenance. We have a highways maintenance efficiency programme to identify best practice, which we are funding centrally. In addition, I am happy to say that in March we allocated an extra £4.1 million to Surrey county council to deal with its specific problems.