Severn Bridges (Tolling)

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Morden]

The hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), who is the Chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee, is away. I know that he would have been here otherwise. We note with interest his conversion to the cause.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this extremely important debate. She mentioned the hidden costs; the UK Government dropped a bombshell on the Welsh Affairs Committee a year or so ago, when they said that there would be an outstanding debt at the end of the concessionary period, when the bridges returned to public ownership. There is no clarity about the sums involved or how long it will take to pay that debt. Does she share my concern that many of our constituents believe that the Treasury is using the bridges as a cash cow? Without clarity on the matter, the people of south Wales will feel that the Treasury is intent on fleecing motorists for the foreseeable future.

[Jessica Morden]

I strongly agree, and I will say much the same thing in my remarks. The Severn bridge tolls are the most expensive in the UK. It now costs £6.40 for a car to cross the bridge, £12.80 for a van, and £19.20 for a coach or lorry. By comparison, it costs just £1.50 for a car to cross the Humber bridge or £2 to use the Dartford crossing. However, the Dartford crossing is free to use between 10 pm and 6 am, and a scheme was recently launched under which local residents can pay just £20 a year to cross the bridge as often as they like. Those are both examples of the Government stepping in after local campaigns and helping long-suffering road users. If they can help businesses and residents in those areas, why can they not take decisive action to help in the case of the Severn bridges?

The tolls are a cost-of-living issue for my constituents, especially those who commute daily over the bridge, and the cost is a big burden for many businesses that operate out of south Wales. Constituents constantly tell me how hard they find it to absorb the increased tolls each year when pay is frozen, hours are reduced and the cost of living continues to rise. A constituent e-mailed me a few weeks ago to say:

“I’m employed in Yate in Bristol which means I have the daily trip across the bridge. While I had budgeted for the bridge cost, the actual cost of commuting along with the increase in the cost of living is currently causing me great concern. I try to ride an old motorcycle as much as I can”—

a motorcycle can cross for free—

“but I have found the wind protection on both bridges to be unsatisfactory, even in the summer, leading me to balance the cost of taking the car with the danger of taking the motorbike. Therefore, I would really like to take the car every day but the cost is just too high, and as you know the cost has now increased again.”

There is little choice. It costs about £2,400 to commute to Bristol by train using a standard adult ticket. Some of my constituents feel that the yearly toll increases have a knock-on effect on alternative modes of transport, such as the bus or the train, which further restricts their choices. The train service from Severn Tunnel Junction station is frequently full, and commuters are sometimes left standing on the platform at peak times. Those who commute between Bristol and Newport East have a really raw deal, which is a significant barrier to those looking for employment in Bristol. It is one thing to pay the toll once a week or so, but quite another to pay it every day, just to go to work. The local anger and frustration was demonstrated just a few days ago on St David’s day, when 120 local singers re-enacted the Rebecca riots—the men were dressed in traditional women’s clothing, apparently—on the M48 bridge. That shows just how strongly people feel about the matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

As I am so old, I remember the opening of the first Severn bridge in 1966. What it most certainly was not was a bridge from England to the Forest of Dean. It was a bridge from England to Wales, and it was by pure technical and geographical chance that the engineers decided to put it at the tip of the constituency of the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper). Similarly, when the second Severn bridge crossing was built, I was on the Standing Committee of this House that dealt with it. It was the then Secretary of State for Wales, Peter Walker, who decided that it was the thing to do. The vast majority of the traffic on both bridges is due to people wanting to go between England and Wales, so I do not agree for one second with the hon. Member for Forest of Dean that either a third Severn crossing is necessary, or that tolls would have to be maintained after the concession ends to pay for a third crossing. The original Severn crossing is obviously not used as much as the second crossing, although I use it quite a bit, so heaven only knows how little traffic there would be on a third. There is no agreement whatever among Welsh MPs—or, I would have thought, English ones—that the bridges are anything other than a lifeline between England and Wales.

The crossings have brought great benefits to Wales, as they have to England; there is no question about that. However, there are difficulties, which my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) referred to in her fine speech, because of the haulage industry and tourists. I agree with the hon. Member for Forest of Dean that there are plenty of people who wish to travel to the Wye valley, the Forest of Dean, other parts of south-east Wales, and to the west country on the other side of the bridge, for tourism reasons. They are obviously caught heavily by the high tolls on the bridge, and it is about time those tolls ended.

The question is: when will that happen? In 2010 or something like that—I cannot quite remember—we were told, I think here in Westminster Hall, by the then Minister that 2017 was when the concession was likely to end. We, and the Welsh Affairs Committee, have been told that it is probable that the concession will end in 2018. However, we have been further told—this is a new one—that it could well go on until the 2020s, because the Department for Transport has found that it is apparently owed some £112 million, because it spent public money on, and in debt over, a bridge that was privately owned.

I am a bit sceptical about all that, to be perfectly honest. I think that all these sudden discoveries in the DFT are excuses to extend the franchise and maintain the tolls for as long as possible. I am hugely sceptical, and I fear I have to disagree with the hon. Member for Forest of Dean—for whom I have a great deal of time, although we do not seem to agree on this subject—on the issue of who controls the bridge; it is a bit more complicated than he suggested. Yes indeed, three of the four entrances, as it were, to the bridges are in England, but then two would be anyway—would they not?—because people on one side have to travel to the other side. I have already explained that the first Severn bridge is an aberration, in that it goes into a bit of the Forest of Dean, near Chepstow. Of course, the second Severn crossing completely goes into the terrain of the Welsh Assembly. The Welsh Government’s interest in this matter therefore cannot be easily dismissed. About 25%, if not more, of all traffic that enters Wales from England goes across those bridges.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The transport spokesperson for the Tories in the Assembly, Mr Byron Davies, said this time last year:

“Devolution of the crossings—and future use of the tolls—has the real potential to help hard-pressed motorists, provide significant investment in Welsh infrastructure and encourage economic growth”.

That is the sort of argument that I made in one of my first speeches in this place in 2010. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that it is imperative that all parties in Wales speak with one voice, rather than the Conservatives saying one thing in Wales and saying something different here in Westminster? Of course, the same applies to the other parties.

[Paul Murphy]

I agree. That follows a pattern over the past few weeks, with a huge disagreement on taxation, but that is another issue. It would be worth while the hon. Member for Forest of Dean getting in his car one day, going on the M4 to Cardiff Bay, and chatting with the transport spokesperson for his party in Cardiff.