Roads: Private Investment

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am not quite sure about the exact proposal that my noble friend puts forward, but we are looking at all options and I will be grateful for any input from noble Lords into possible models.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, it may well be the case that the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, authorised an effective improvement to the roads, but I am concerned that the Minister effectively told the House that pretty well everything could be covered by this initiative. For example, would it be possible that there would be designated lanes for those who paid a road toll, so that we had the equivalent of first-class passengers on rail operating on our roads? Or would it mean that a mere resurfacing of the road, or just the addition of a junction, would effectively mean that the road had been upgraded and therefore could be subject to one of these initiatives?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord has made just the same points as I made to my officials. The key question is: is it additional capacity or is it merely an enhancement? If it is additional capacity, we would consider tolling it, but if it was just an enhancement, perhaps that would not justify tolling. The noble Lord puts his finger on an extremely important point.