Smart Motorways

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I cannot give the noble Viscount the specific details about that particular section of road, but I am very happy to ask for those statistics.

[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

My Lords, is not the reality that, when the initial M42 smart motorway programme was introduced, it showed very considerable reductions in congestion, great improvements in driving time reliability and a reduction in accidents? When the programme was rolled out further, under the next Government, a lot of cost-cutting took place, which did create some issues. However, is this not an extremely good way of getting better capacity, and particularly of dealing with peak-hour congestion?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

Obviously, dealing with capacity on the roads is one of the major contributors to the value-for-money exercises in terms of reducing congestion and enabling people to move around. We need to be careful in how we analyse the reports that have just come out. This is a long-term study, and we have to be mindful of the fact that we had just been through Covid as well. However, as my noble friend says, there are examples where improvements have been made, and we will continue to analyse all the schemes to make sure that we get the best value for money and the best reduction in congestion.