Roads: Private Investment

Lord Mawhinney Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the first comfort that I will give is that the feasibility study will consider the role that tolling can play, but it will not consider tolling existing capacity or road pricing. The purpose of the feasibility study is to look at how we can better run the strategic road network into the future so that investors can make long-term decisions rather than the short cycles that we are experiencing at the moment.

[Lord Mawhinney]

My Lords, will my noble friend learn two lessons from the privately designed, built, financed and operated stretch of the A1 between Alconbury and Yaxley? The first is that without that privately funded scheme—which I declare to the House I authorised—motorists on the A1 would still be bogged down in horrendous traffic jams with very little likelihood that that road would have been financed directly from the public purse. The second lesson that I hope he will learn is that when cost negotiations are taking place with the private sector they should be done with maximum vigour on behalf of the taxpayer.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I regularly used to use the bit of road that my noble friend refers to. Particularly impressive was the rate at which the construction project went ahead. It had all the signs of an efficient process.