Local Roads: Funding and Maintenance

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the Select Committee statement. The hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), who chairs the Transport Committee, will speak on her subject for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of her statement, the Chair will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement and call the hon. Lady to respond to those in turn. Members can expect to be called only once. Interventions should be questions and should be brief. Those on the Front Bench may take part in questioning. I call the Chair of the committee, Lilian Greenwood.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for the opportunity to make a statement to the House on the 10th report of the Transport Committee, “Local roads funding and maintenance: filling the gap”, which we published on Monday. The successful preparation of all our reports depends on the hard work of the Committee’s Clerks and staff, the diligence of the Members who make up our Committee—I am glad to see my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) in the Chamber—and the generosity of our witnesses, who give up their time to prepare for and take part in our sessions.

I particularly thank Paula Claytonsmith, Lynne Stinson, Lynne Wait and Anne Shaw for ensuring that we heard expert female voices in a male-dominated sector. I am sorry that the Roads Minister, the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis), cannot be here today, but he has conveyed his sincere apologies, and I am sure he will pay close attention to Hansard tomorrow.

There is a plague of potholes blighting our local roads and pavements. This is not a new phenomenon, but one that successive Governments and councils across the land have failed to tackle. The consequences of this failure are all around us—we see them every day. I want to talk about the impacts of poor road and pavement conditions, why Government and local authority actions to date have been ineffectual and our report’s recommendations for tackling the problem.

On my journey to work, here in Westminster and out and about in my constituency, I see many examples of cracked and crumbling roads. Just today, a constituent emailed me about Green Lane in Clifton. Last week, Westminster City Council filled a pothole just around the corner from the Department for Transport that I had ridden into on my way home—I confess that it caused me to use some very unparliamentary language.

Our witnesses told us about the serious impacts that potholes have on the lives of pedestrians, cyclists, motorists and other road users. For example, poor pavements can strand older, frail and vulnerable people in their homes. Living Streets has found that nearly a third of adults over 65 felt reluctant to leave the house on foot due to the volume of cracks and uneven surfaces on surrounding streets, and almost two thirds of older people were worried about the state of street surfaces. Nearly half said that well-maintained pavements would make them more likely to go for a walk. Poorly maintained roads create real risks for vulnerable road users. DFT data shows that the number of cyclists killed or seriously injured due to defective road surfaces more than tripled between 2005 and 2017.

Local authorities must compensate motorists for damage to vehicles resulting from poor road conditions, and the cost of doing so has risen dramatically in recent years. Kwik Fit has estimated that the damage caused to vehicles from potholes in 2017 cost £915 million to repair, an increase of more than a third on the repair bill in 2016. Based on its share of Britain’s car insurance market, the AA has estimated that 3,500 claims had been made for pothole damage in 2017. The cost of this compensation ultimately falls on taxpayers, and it diverts money away from funding vital public services.

One of the most frustrating things about poor road conditions—this came through very clearly in our evidence—is the lack of any consistent reporting tool that drivers, cyclists, pedestrians and other road users can use to report problem potholes. Some councils have their own online tools, and there are nationwide sites such as FixMyStreet, but there is a lack of transparency around the whole reporting process, little clarity about what will be done and no guarantee that people will get a reply. Mark Morrell—“Mr Pothole”—for years a doughty campaigner against the pothole scourge, made a powerful case to us to fix this.

Why, year after year, do these problems persist? Why have successive Governments and local councils not done anything about them? In truth, they have tried, but their efforts have been inconsistent, and as a result the outcomes have been sub-optimal. They are constrained by three key things: funding, information and collaboration.

The key issue is funding. For decades, councils have complained that they do not have the funding to undertake a preventive—and, ultimately, cheaper and more effective—approach to maintaining their local roads and pavements. Successive Governments have responded to this by providing short-term, stop-start capital pots, such as the pothole action fund. Any extra funding is of course welcome, but the wrong funding in the wrong place at the wrong time means that councils simply mitigate the most obvious damage. It does not encourage the more effective, proactive maintenance that is the key to the long-term renewal of our local roads, as we heard from council after council.

The second issue is that councils sometimes do not have a full picture of the state of their road networks. If they do not know what they are dealing with, how can they plan and price maintenance properly? This lack of knowledge can be improved by innovating in data collection methods. There has been good work in this area in recent years, and there is a real desire on the part of Government and industry to work together to find solutions.

We heard about a similar willingness to innovate in the third area—good practice and collaboration. There is a real opportunity for initiatives such as the use of recycled plastic, self-repairing technology, graphene and even drones to bring down the cost of road repairs. We heard about the innovation and good practice going on across the country, but it was not always easy for this to be shared beyond individual councils and regions.

Our report makes a series of detailed recommendations to the Government to tackle these problems, and I want to highlight four of them. First and foremost, funding: there is not enough of it, and what there is is not allocated efficiently or effectively. Local government revenue funding has fallen by about 25% since 2010. The allocation within it for local roads is not ring-fenced, and it is often used by councils to plug gaps in other budgets. Capital funding, through the pothole action fund and other pots, is sporadic and time-limited.

To tackle this problem we recommend a front-loaded, long-term funding settlement for local councils in England. The DFT should champion it, and the Treasury should seriously consider it as part of the forthcoming spending review. This would enable local authorities to address the historical road maintenance backlog and plan confidently for the future. The settlement should not only include capital pots managed by the DFT, but roll up into a five-year settlement the revenue support elements of roads funding administered by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. This critical funding reform must not be an excuse for a budget cut.

Secondly, innovation is essential if the efficiency and effectiveness of local road maintenance is to continue to improve, which it must in the face of limited funding. It is right that the Government stimulate and encourage innovation, but the value for money of any investment is properly repaid only when new technologies, ideas and ways of working are scaled up and made available to all. In the light of this, we have recommended that the DFT work across government to collate all innovation funding for local roads in one place, establish as far as possible common rules for bidding and properly assess the benefits of innovation initiatives.

Thirdly, local authorities will be able to make better use of available funds for road maintenance only if they can target such funding well, and this requires good data. The DFT needs to be clear about whether the data it receives from local authorities on road conditions is consistent and allows valid comparisons to be made. It needs to be clear what it does with such data, how it is analysed and what action is taken on the back of the conclusions it draws. The DFT should also make it easier for the public to report road condition concerns and access local authority road condition data. We recommend that it does this by running an innovation competition to develop a platform the public can use to make online reports about road conditions directly to their council and to access real-time local road condition data.

Fourthly, making the best use of the available funding requires the sharing and adoption of good practice in road maintenance. This is a key role for central Government. The DFT should commit to monitoring and reviewing the current approach and reporting within two years on its effects and impacts. Local councils and industry are developing good practice in highway survey and maintenance. However, from the evidence we have received, it is not always clear that this is being widely shared. Regional highway alliances should be sharing good practice and benchmarking it against one another. The DFT could do more to facilitate this—for example, by providing a virtual good practice toolkit and repository, so that councils across England can find examples of good practice.

In conclusion, local roads are the arteries of prosperous and vibrant villages, towns and cities. They are critical to the movement of goods, as well as helping people to get around. The consequences of a deteriorating local road network are significant. It undermines local economic performance and results in direct costs to taxpayers. The safety of other road users is seriously compromised. This plague of potholes is a major headache for everyone. It is time for the Government to be bold, to take up our recommendations and to give councils the funding and the wider system of support that they need if they are to deliver for our constituents the roads and pavements they deserve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

If we believed Ministers’ promises back in 2012, passengers on the midland main line would be travelling on new electric trains this year. Instead, they are on old British Rail stock, the toilets empty straight onto the track, and they have to lean out of the window to open the door when the train arrives in the station. That is not great for anyone, and it is certainly not disabled friendly. The Government’s inclusive transport strategy, published last year, does not contain any commitment that all rolling stock on the rail network will meet the accessibility deadline of 1 January 2020—a deadline that this industry has known about for 20 years. The strategy does give that commitment for buses and coaches; why not rail?

[Mr Speaker]

If the hon. Lady experiences some of what she has described, I can say only that it must be a most undignified experience for the Chair of the Transport Committee of the House of Commons.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Even mothers and mathematicians have to respect the method, and the method in the House is that Members question Ministers about the Government’s policies. I do not blame the Secretary of State for taking the opportunity to ram home her point with force and alacrity, but Members must understand that this is not Question Time about the policies, tactics or preferences of the Opposition; this is Question Time about the policies of the Government. Even if there is some Whip handout saying, “Ask the Minister about the behaviour of the Labour party,” that does not make it in order. It is not in order—end of subject.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

T9. Thousands of women born in the 1950s are being left in serious hardship as a result of accelerated changes to the state pension age, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker) said, they are crying out for justice. In the week when we celebrate the centenary of the first women gaining the right to vote, how dare this Government ignore their voices?

NHS Winter Crisis

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is better than the alternative.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and the East Midlands Ambulance Service have both declared the highest level of alert in recent days. Despite the heroic efforts of NHS staff, emergency patients’ care, safety and dignity have been put at risk, and of course other patients have had their operations cancelled. Does this not confirm that the Government’s preparations and resourcing were too little and too late?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Thursday 13th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Transport Committee, Lilian Greenwood.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

The ticketing information in which passengers are most interested is the price. Since 2014, commuter rail fare increases have been capped to the retail prices index, but in an answer to me yesterday, the rail Minister said that that fares policy is “under review”. Next month’s inflation figures will determine the cap for January 2018. If the Department reverts to the old formula, fares could rise by 5% or more, pricing many off the railways. Next week, when the Secretary of State announces his investment plans for control period 6, will he pledge that the improvements that passengers need will come at a price they can afford?

Public Sector Pay Cap

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I mean to accommodate remaining would-be interrogators, but questions and answers from now on need to be shorter. They have been becoming ever longer as the session has proceeded.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Fifty-five per cent. of public sector workers are not covered by review bodies, including most of our civil servants and some of those on the very lowest incomes. Will the Chief Secretary give any hope that real pay rises will be considered for the 3 million public sector employees without a review body, and what will be the mechanism for doing so?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is always useful to have a bit of additional information. We are greatly indebted to the Minister.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

In the east midlands, the average ambulance arrival time for life-threatening cases has almost doubled in the last three years, and Nottingham’s A&E waiting times are the worst in a decade. Will Ministers apologise to my constituents, including hard-working NHS staff, for their failure to fund health and social care adequately?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Thursday 13th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who is an extremely senior and cerebral Member of the House, keeps chuntering from a sedentary position about buried money—just in case colleagues had not heard what he was chuntering about. It would be good if he ceased chuntering.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

11. Improvements to air quality and action to tackle road transport pollution in this country have been driven by EU legislation and the enforcement mechanisms that underpin them. In September the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), alongside the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), was asked seven times by the Environmental Audit Committee whether the Government would retain EU air quality limits following exit from the EU, but she failed to give that commitment. Weeks later, why has she still not confirmed that EU air quality limits will be retained or improved, or explained how they will be enforced, which is essential to cutting premature deaths?

Point of Order

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Thursday 10th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This morning at Transport Questions, in response to my question about airport expansion, the Secretary of State stated that “when an announcement is to be made, I will make it in the House.” However, it has also been reported that there will be a press conference setting out the Government’s new position later this evening. Is it in order for the Transport Secretary to commit to making a statement in this House first, only to proceed to announce the policy in the press when the House is not sitting? At the very least, would it not be a great discourtesy to the House to do that?

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Lady is that if the Government have an announcement to make—whether of a final decision, as they see it, on this matter or appertaining to that final decision and describing the process to be undertaken and the specified period in which it will be undertaken—it should be disclosed to the House first so that hon. and right hon. Members can have an opportunity to question the Secretary of State. He is an extremely experienced Minister and a very experienced Member of Parliament, and he is well able, as he regularly demonstrates, to fend for himself at the Dispatch Box. These matters should be treated of in this Chamber and not somewhere else. It is blindingly obvious that that is the wish of the House today, and I feel sure that the Leader of the House will communicate that as necessary.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Monday 17th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Parliamentary colleagues can walk along the streets of Northamptonshire safer and more emboldened in the knowledge of the deployment of the hon. Gentleman’s talents.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Last week I met members of Nottingham’s Jewish community, which expressed deep concern about the dramatic increase in anti-Semitic abuse to which Members and others have been subjected on social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter. I am sure that these concerns are shared across the east midlands, including in Kettering and Northamptonshire. I understand that when the police put in RIPA requests to Twitter, they are sent via America and it sometimes takes so long that potential investigations are hampered. What is the Minister doing to ensure that companies such as Twitter and Facebook fulfil their responsibilities under British law?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Thursday 25th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We will leave it there, although I have much enjoyed it. The Minister of State has many important responsibilities and no one in this House would disagree with the proposition that he always tries, which he advanced a few moments ago, but one thing for which he has no responsibility is the promises and policies of the United Kingdom Independence party.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

There is a growing view that by the time the second phase of HS2 is complete, Crossrail 2 will be essential to cope with the additional passengers travelling through Euston station. Is the Minister content that last week’s revised plan for Euston addresses that problem, or will the DFT now take the sensible step of assessing fully the case for Crossrail 2?

Decent Homes Programme (Nottingham)

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Is the Minister giving way or sitting down?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman is a generous fellow. I call Lilian Greenwood.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I thank the Minister for giving way. I obviously listened carefully to his response, although I should say I am rather disappointed with its lack of clarity. Can he confirm how many tenants of Nottingham City Homes he expects to be living in non-decent housing by the time this Parliament comes to an end in 2015?

Leveson Inquiry

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. For the benefit of the hon. Gentleman and as a reminder to the Secretary of State, I point out that the statement the Secretary of State has offered the House is on the Leveson inquiry, not godparents. I think that we are clear on that.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Responsibility for the management and conduct of special advisers rests with the Minister. Will he admit that he showed poor judgment and failed properly to manage Mr Smith in such a sensitive role?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This question is about Kettering, from which Carshalton and Wallington and Manchester are a long way away.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

2. What steps he plans to take to support law centres.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We are immensely grateful to the Secretary of State. He is testing the knee muscles of colleagues very considerably, and we are grateful to him for that, I am sure.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Today’s report by Macmillan Cancer Support showed that over the past 40 years there has been virtually no improvement in life expectancy for those diagnosed with a brain tumour. Brain Tumour UK and experts such as my city’s own Professor David Walker are calling for action to improve diagnosis and treatment. What action is the Department taking to address their concerns?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood]

I thank the Minister for that answer, but I am disappointed by the lack of urgency with which his Government are addressing the matter. I was shocked to find that, as a result of the Government’s initiative in relation to voting on 5 May this year, only 40 of the thousands of service personnel deployed in Afghanistan voted in secret by post in the referendum, compared with the 217 who voted by post in the general election last year. At a public meeting in October 2008—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We must have a one-second question; there is a lot to get through. Quick question, and we will carry on.

[Lilian Greenwood]

The Deputy Prime Minister assured my constituent Devina Worsley that he and the Armed Forces Minister would take action to address the issue. Is that another broken promise, or is he just not up to the job?

Higher Education Funding

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I would like to accommodate a few more, but I really do appeal to Members to help each other.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Does the Minister not understand that many talented young people will simply feel unable to choose to go to university because they will be terrified of leaving with debts hanging over them of more than £20,000, which they might never be able to pay off?

Finance Bill

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Members are not helping the hon. Lady. May I say to her that it is entirely understandable that she looks behind her, but that she must face the House?

[Lilian Greenwood]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the impact that the VAT increase will have on the retail sector? I understand from a recent report that 77% of retailers felt that it would have a negative, quite negative or very negative impact on their sales, potentially leading to a 1.6% reduction in retail staff, 47,000 employees losing their jobs and more than 9,000 stores closing—

[Mr Speaker]

Order.

Canterbury City Council Bill

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and John Bercow

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood]

I would like to say a little more about why the Bill is necessary in Nottingham city—not all Members will be as familiar with it as the Minister is. Nottingham has a strong retail sector—it is one of the best cities in the country for shopping. One part of the city, Clumber street, between the Old Market square and a large shopping centre called the Victoria centre, is, I believe, one of the busiest pedestrianised shopping streets in the whole of Europe. On a Saturday when one is trying to get from one place to another it is incredibly crowded.

One of the problems is an activity which, although Members might want to call it peddling, is actually illegal street trading. People set up small stalls—they are not pedlars walking from place to place waiting for people to stop them and buy—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am learning quite a lot about the geography and high streets of south Nottingham, and that is a matter of considerable interest, but it had been my impression that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) was still making his speech and was giving way to an intervention. I think we will now let him respond to it.