Transport (CSR)

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to have this opportunity to discuss the outcome of the comprehensive spending review in relation to transport. I am pleased to see the Minister of State, Department for Transport, in her place this afternoon. I look forward to hearing her comments and, hopefully, her replies to the questions that I raise. I am also pleased to see here today my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), and I congratulate him on his new position as shadow Transport Minister. He will bring to the post considerable expertise in the transport field.

I welcome the Government’s recognition that transport infrastructure is vital in supporting economic growth. The Department has described it as an engine for growth. Repeated statements and announcements have emphasised the Government’s commitment to transport, and long-term investment in transport, in supporting our economy. Indeed, good transport links are essential to the movement of goods and people both locally and around the country. We cannot have a successful economy without a good transport infrastructure. However, we need good infrastructure throughout the country. Although I support continued investment in transport in the south and south-east, it must not be at the cost of investment in the north and other parts of the country. I will return to that theme a little later on.

I support what the Government are saying about the importance of investing in transport infrastructure for our future. Looking at the detail of the comprehensive spending review in relation to transport, however, it is apparent that there are many important questions that need to be asked and pursued.

In relation to rail, I am pleased that some commitments previously entered into have been maintained; indeed, it would have been very difficult to abandon them. I am particularly pleased that the allocation to Network Rail and to rail, 2009 to 2014, has been maintained, and that the essential part of the investment in Crossrail has also been honoured. A saving of £1 billion has been found. None the less, that cannot disguise the fact that there are to be major cuts to the transport budget.

According to the Department for Transport’s own figures, the overall cut over the four years of the comprehensive spending review comes to 15% in real terms overall. Capital spending is down 11% and resource spending down 21%. Those are major cuts and come on top of the in-year cuts in 2010-11.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. The Labour party submission to the comprehensive spending review suggested that cuts in unprotected Departments such as transport should average no more than 20%. Actually, they have averaged out rather less than that and the Department for Transport significantly less. If she is arguing for even lower cuts in transport budgets, which Departments does she suggest should make greater ones?

[Mrs Ellman]

The purpose of today’s debate is to focus on transport and the implications of the comprehensive spending review for transport services. Indeed, that is the remit of the Transport Committee, so I am concentrating on transport today.

According to the Passenger Transport Executive Group, capital funding for local transport outside London was cut by 19% in 2010-11. It is true that the outcome could have been worse, and comparisons have been drawn with other Departments, but that does not hide the severity of the cuts that will be put in place. There are to be new funds from which transport projects could be supported. The regional growth fund, which started off as a business fund to replace the budgets of the regional development agencies, has been expanded to include transport and some housing projects, and there is to be a local sustainable transport fund. There is no way in which those two funds can even start to replace some of the major cuts that are contained in the comprehensive spending review figures.

At the moment, my Committee is considering the relationship between spending on transport and economic growth. One issue it is considering is the distribution of transport investment around the country. Three times as much transport investment per head is made in London and the south-east as in the northern regions and the midlands. How will the comprehensive spending review impact on the distribution of that transport investment? Will such disparity be reduced or increased? I am very interested to know the answer and whether such an assessment is thought to be important. In relation to budgets, it is extremely important to consider the impact on places around the country as well as nationally.

Many transport schemes are strategic rather than local in nature. In the past, business-led regional development agencies, working with Government offices for the regions, have enabled local government, working with business, to decide on regional priorities and to make representations to Government. That will end. The Secretary of State for Transport has made it clear that the proposed local economic partnerships will not be sufficient on their own to replace those arrangements. He told the Transport Committee only yesterday that he thought that local economic partnerships—I do not know whether he knew exactly how they would be put together—would need to work together, or some other arrangement might be required to look at those very same projects. To my concern, he also said that he did not think that that would be achieved until the end of the Parliament. If those alternative arrangements happen and they do not take place until the end of the Parliament, will the Minister tell us how regional rather than local priorities will be determined? Will the decisions on such projects become centralised? What are the arrangements to be? We cannot wait until the end of the Parliament to know the answers.

Let me turn to roads investment. There are some big questions to raise on the implications of the Budget on roads. The budget for road maintenance is to be reduced by 20%, which is a big reduction. We are told that that will be achieved by efficiency savings rather than by cutting back on important maintenance. We all know that if routine maintenance is not done when it is required, a lot more will be required to be spent at a later date. What kind of mechanisms are in place to monitor how that reduction is to be met? Will it be through efficiency savings or will it mean that important maintenance on our roads is simply not done?

The Highways Agency’s capital budget is to be cut by around 50%. That is also a matter of great concern. Seven schemes have been cancelled and the much needed upgrade of the A14 has been sent back to the drawing board. Does that mean the end of major new road-building in Great Britain? It would be helpful to know whether the major cutbacks in that sector are to do with the problems of our times—the Government’s wish to move very quickly to remove the deficit—or a basic change in transport policy.

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[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on securing this debate. I do not intend to speak for very long, as the hon. Lady has comprehensively covered the issues that the Select Committee on Transport is considering and, as a member of that Committee, I do not wish to go over the same ground. For the same reason, I do not intend to comment on the specific projects announced in the comprehensive spending review or subsequent announcements.

I welcome the success of my right hon. Friend the Minister and her colleagues in securing the assessment in the comprehensive spending review. I have to say that I feared it would be much worse and that transport would be one of the easy victims of the cuts that, sadly, must be made. By their very nature, transport projects are long term. If cuts are made, the impact is not always immediately felt. It was very bold and brave of the Government to give priority to the schemes that are for the long-term benefit of the country.

I want to focus on what follows the CSR period. As the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside mentioned, one of the Transport Committee’s current inquiries is into transport and the economy. As we are in the middle of that inquiry, I do not want to prejudge its conclusions, but I want to put on the record my concern and desire that we should take a longer-term perspective on transport planning in this country. We should take a more strategic, joined-up view. We have had plenty of laudable policies, schemes and reviews of individual modes of transport, whether rail, aviation, roads or maritime. However, historically, we have not taken a joined-up view and considered different modes of transport and how they fit together.

High Speed 2 is a classic example. I will not revisit the debate we had in Westminster Hall earlier this week, but we should not consider that sort of project in isolation. In considering the economic benefits, we look solely at what High Speed 2 can deliver, but such projects should be considered in conjunction with a long-term aviation policy for the United Kingdom. Before we fix the route of High Speed 2, we ought to consider how it should join up with airports in the south-east and the rest of the country. Germany has a multiple airport hub that is well connected by high-speed rail services. High Speed 2 is a multi-billion pound, long-term project and we will get one shot at making it right. Before we commit to a specific route and a vast sum of public expenditure, we ought to make sure that it is thought through strategically.

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman makes the valid point that the project needs to be carefully considered in a strategic context. However, if the logic of high-speed rail is, among other things, to compete with aviation and draw people away from aviation to reduce carbon emissions, surely there is not a terribly strong strategic logic to the scheme making it easier for people to get to airports.

[Iain Stewart]

I am afraid I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. There will be competition between high-speed rail and short-haul aviation, and I would like the United Kingdom to be part of a Europe-wide high-speed network, so that it is feasible to travel by rail from Birmingham to Paris or Frankfurt. However, it is an inescapable fact that the demands on medium and long-haul air travel will increase and, until an engineer comes up with a solution, we cannot yet take trains across the Atlantic or other expanses of water.

As part of the Transport Committee’s inquiry, we visited Birmingham airport a few weeks ago. The people who work there are excited about the High Speed 2 line, because the journey time from the London area to Birmingham airport will be less than 40 minutes. That opens up the prospect of having longer-haul flights from Birmingham and relieving the capacity pressures on south-east England airports. That might not be the only answer, but it is the sort of long-term consideration that transport planning should include.

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[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I, too, commend the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) for leading this debate.

The overall context of this debate is the comprehensive spending review and the need to tackle the country’s deficit. The overspend inherited from the previous Government is so great that one could cut the entire Department for Transport budget—every penny of Government money spent on buses, trains, roads, tube lines and so on—10 times over and still be overspending. That is the scale of the task faced by the Government in trying to rebalance the economy.

In that context, for the Department to have achieved a cut of only 15% over four years is to be genuinely celebrated. It is well below the average for Government Departments, and is reflective, I hope, of a good and robust case put to the Treasury. It certainly reflects the importance of transport to this Government, which is very much to be welcomed. From a Liberal Democrat perspective, the importance of transport is that it will help to improve the economy again, and it will also help us to achieve the boldly stated aim of being the greenest Government ever. Those two in combination should lead to a model of more sustainable prosperity, which is very much to be desired.

Some of the expectations of the comprehensive spending review have genuinely been confounded. We spoke a little about the bus service operating grant. Any cut in it is to be regretted, and I am sure that Ministers regret it as much as I do, but it was widely discussed as potentially 50%. A cut of only 20% is relatively benign, and I believe that bus service operators have assured Ministers, including the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), that it can be absorbed, hopefully without increases in fares. I shall return to the bus service operating grant later.

Comment in the transport press has been favourable. Local Transport Today, a newspaper that I am learning to read avidly, commented in an editorial:

“Philip Hammond will be a happy man this week...The DfT’s 15% budget reduction over the next four years is lower than the 19% Government average and the Department’s reduction in capital funding (11%) is far better than the 29% average.”

That is all to the good. As part of the package, there are new Government funding lines that are particularly to be welcomed. The local sustainable transport fund of £560 million over four years reflects the importance of localism to this Government, and has an explicit link to the reduction of CO₂ emissions, which is very welcome. I hope that grants made under that scheme are for measures to increase the importance of cycling and walking at a local level, as well as for more traditional travel projects.

As the Secretary of State confirmed in an answer to me earlier today, there is also the use of the new methodology for calculating the future cost of carbon. One of the most disastrous calculations by the previous Government was their use of an adulterated version of what was recommended by the Stern review to calculate the future cost of carbon emissions, which is, in effect, the value of future lives lost by climate change. They so heavily discounted that rate that projects such as the third runway at Heathrow looked economic when the cost of climate change was taken into account. It took only a change in the calculation for the idea of a third runway to look as bad as it does, and for the project to be rightly stopped. I am pleased that the new methodology will be adopted in calculations relating to all future projects.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

Notwithstanding how carbon is calculated—I do not for a second accept that the methodology was in any way, shape or form flawed—does the hon. Gentleman actually believe that if Heathrow ceases to be a hub, aviation will decrease? Does he not accept that logically Schiphol, Charles de Gaulle or Frankfurt would become the European hub, which would probably be welcomed by Brussels, and that the UK economy would then be in disbenefit?

[Martin Horwood]

I am rather surprised that the hon. Gentleman thinks that the methodology was not flawed. It was changed in March, and the now leader of the Labour party, the former Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, rightly presided over that change, which this Government, who took office shortly afterwards, took up. I think that the hon. Gentleman needs to be careful about his calculations.

As far as the other airports are concerned, it is very important that aviation is constrained across the European Union, and indeed around the world, as part of our assault on the threat of climate change. Unless the hon. Gentleman is challenging the methodology used by Sir Nicholas Stern—now Lord Stern—in his review, which was commissioned by the previous leader of the Labour party and Prime Minister, he will have to explain what methodology he would use to reflect the true economic cost of the threat of climate change. The methodology has been widely accepted in business and by investors and is now part of business calculations, and the use by the previous Government—until they changed their mind at the very last minute—of an incorrect and adulterated version of the cost of carbon, deviated from good business practice, apart from anything else.

On assessing project impact, I recommend that Ministers look carefully at the new approach to appraisal—NATA—assessment framework, and ensure that environmental and quality-of-life benefits are properly reflected. My noble Friend Lord Bradshaw in another place has made some very valuable and typically learned critiques of NATA, and I commend them to Ministers.

On railways, Ministers can be very happy indeed. The overall balance of investment in the Department will shift from 49 to 60% for rail by 2014-15, and that is exactly the right direction of travel. I am delighted that major projects such as Crossrail, Thameslink, the tube upgrades and, of course, High Speed 2 are all secure and that High Speed 2 in particular will, assuming that it is extended to Scotland, in the very long term deliver substantial reductions in aviation within the UK. I take the points made by other hon. Members on this earlier, but High Speed 2 is a very important contribution to rebalancing and making more environmentally friendly our whole approach to transport; that has been the experience of high-speed rail wherever it has been introduced around the world in competition with aviation.

Today, significant investment in new rolling stock was announced, with 600 new carriages for Crossrail and 1,200 for Thameslink, which in turn will free up hundreds of electric carriages for redeployment on newly electrified routes elsewhere and help to make the case for those new routes economic, which is very important. That, in turn, will free up diesel rolling stock for other routes, and help to support their economics. We have had additional announcements on developments at Reading, Birmingham New Street and other stations, on the east coast and midland main lines, and in Manchester and south Wales, and the confirmation, which is very important to colleagues in Scotland, that the inter-city express programme has been narrowed to two options, both of which include absolutely through services, and do not therefore raise the prospect of parts of Scotland being cut off by the need to change trains.

I would also welcome the schemes previously announced by the Department, which are reflected in the settlement for light rail, trams and ultra-light rail schemes. Those mentioned are Greater Manchester Metrolink, the Blackpool and Fleetwood tramway upgrade and the Tyne and Wear metro upgrade, and there are plenty of others that we could consider. The hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) made a very powerful case for Leeds, and the Leeds new generation transport scheme is in the development pool, which means that it has a fair chance of success. I wish him well in putting forward a strong case for the Leeds light rail system.

There are other schemes even further into the future, and I must mention the ultra-light rail system being fought for in Gloucestershire. We recognise that it is a long way off in terms of public funding, but important steps can be taken to support it. Most obviously, since it is intended that the system will reuse railway lines that were closed down by Dr Beeching, Ministers could look, perhaps with the Department for Communities and Local Government, at the new planning framework to ensure that nothing is done that prejudices such development. That would be an important way to support the future development of ultra-light rail.

On roads, I welcome many of the announcements, including the confirmation that support for electric car-charging infrastructure will go ahead. With the possibility of “hybrid hybrid vehicles”—those that run on electric batteries until the batteries run out and then revert to more conventional hybrid vehicle technology—we might be within sight of escaping the chicken and egg situation, in which the car-charging points cannot be rolled out until the electric vehicles are there to produce the demand for them, but the demand for the electric vehicles cannot be there until there are charging points. There is now the prospect of beginning to move forward in the electric car market, and the Government’s clear support for that is very important.

I am pleased that the main focus of the Department’s spending is shifting more towards maintenance and away from new roads, but the Liberal Democrats might have gone further and looked rather more critically at many of the other new road projects. I was very interested in what the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) said about the M60 project. It certainly sounds as though the Highways Agency’s consultation process has left a very great deal to be desired in that case, and could be critically looked at again. I also suggest that Ministers cast a particularly critical eye over the suggested upgrade of the junctions between the M4 and the M5 in my part of the world. I travelled the M4 and the M5 recently by car, and found no particular problems at the junctions or with the interaction between the two motorways, so I am not sure what the justification for the project is. I urge Ministers to keep all new motorway projects under very close review.

Not all road projects are bad, however. The Mersey gateway bridge project, which is in the supported pool and is therefore certainly being given a fair wind by the Government, could substantially reduce carbon emissions by increasing walking and cycling and considerably shortening car journeys in Merseyside. It would obviously also bring economic benefits. One last comment on roads is that with snow and ice possibly being a topical issue even before the end of the week, it is very welcome that the Local Government Association reports substantial extra investment in the provision of grit by local authorities, but I urge Ministers to keep a weather eye on that because we have seen some disasters in the past, when grit has run out. Grit suppliers particularly need to be encouraged to maintain supplies to local government as a high priority.

I am concerned about buses. I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside, who emphasised the importance of the number of bus users in the country. Some 5 billion to 6 billion bus journeys are undertaken a year. The bus sector faces a potential triple whammy from the CSR. There is an admittedly modest reduction in the bus service operator grant, but the maintenance of the concessionary fares scheme is an important political commitment, which I support in principle. In fact, I should like it to be extended to 16 to 18-year-olds, in line with the policy of the UK Youth Parliament. That scheme is imposed on local authorities in a way that is inflexible for them and they have no way to control its costs. Its incorporation into the formula grant in future will lead local authorities to make some difficult choices about how to spend money locally. Since local authorities also subsidise many bus routes, those three things could combine and put a lot of local bus services at risk. That would damage our commitment to public transport and greener transport and would put rural bus services in particular at risk, which would not be welcome. Will Ministers meet their colleagues from the Department for Communities and Local Government and local council leaders from the Local Government Association, urgently to discuss the likely impact of the CSR on the bus sector?

Some responses could be made to the threat to the bus sector that do not involve spending large amounts of public money. It is instructive that bus journeys in London are on an upward trend, whereas bus journeys in the rest of the country are on a downward trend. Those of us outside London might mention the probably well deserved but quite generous subsidy that public transport in London gets relative to the rest of the country. But we could also mention the Oyster card and the use of smart technology, which makes it easier for people to use buses in London and the enormously better marketing and provision of information about routes in London at every bus stop and online. Certainly, that is in sharp contrast to the situation in Gloucestershire and many other parts of the country, which makes buses virtually incomprehensible and difficult for consumers to use reliably.

[Mrs Ellman]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the distinction between the rise of bus services in London and, until recently, reduced use in the rest of the country is attributable largely to the fact that deregulation was never applied in London in the same way as it was in the rest of the country? Does he agree that the provisions in the Local Transport Act 2008 to give local authorities more powers over bus operators must be implemented?

[Martin Horwood]

Deregulation played a role. In terms of the co-ordinated provision of information and marketing and selling bus transport to local populations, it is much more difficult in areas where buses have been so comprehensively deregulated. I do not think that the renationalisation of bus services nationwide is likely. Much as I would love to overturn some of Mrs Thatcher’s legacies, we probably should not concentrate on that one.

My point is that there are solutions to trying to support commercially viable bus routes, or making those routes more commercially viable, that do not necessarily involve large sums of public money and might be about smarter and more intelligent policy locally.

I should like to highlight two local issues. On the Dartford crossing, a small but locally important part of the CSR will maintain the toll regime for its 150,000 users a day. I understand the Government’s case for that, because it is part of an investment in future transport provision in that area and traffic management will be improved, and so on. But the original idea was that the toll would cease when the Dartford crossing had been paid for. I am afraid that it has now been paid for, so there is some fairly justifiable anger locally that this is continuing.

The Minister knows that none of my speeches are complete without a reference to the redoubling of the Swindon to Kemble line in the south-west of England. That is potentially the only rail project that the Government might cancel, which would be regrettable. It is important to the west of England and south Wales, and to Welsh Members and, I suspect, to my neighbour the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael).

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is an excellent neighbour. We both make the same point, which is that the Stroud-Kemble line should be redoubled, if at all possible. The case for that is strong both in terms of business and tourism. It is a good idea to encourage people to use the rail system by ensuring that the magic figure of less than two hours for a rail journey from Gloucester to London is achieved.

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful case that all Gloucestershire MPs from all parties agree with. Even when there were Labour MPs in Gloucestershire, they agreed too and strongly supported it. That project would increase the reliability and the number of through services in many ways, which is important for Gloucestershire and for the rest of the network in the area, not least because of what one Welsh Assembly Member described as

“an insurance policy against interruption in the Severn Tunnel.”

The Swindon to Kemble line has regional implications. It was, I think, a strange aberration by the Office of Rail Regulation not to include that line in the Network Rail major investment plan. I hope that the Government will see a way to rectifying that mistake.

Overall, the picture from the CSR, as the dust settles on the battleground, shows that the Government have secured substantial investment in transport, particularly shifting the balance of investment towards more environmentally sustainable forms of transport, which is important for the period of the CSR and for future generations for many years to come, and I congratulate Ministers on achieving it.

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[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

I am delighted to contribute to the debate under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and I offer my congratulations to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on securing this important debate.

I am going to echo many of the remarks already made by colleagues. Given the economic situation that the coalition Government inherited, we might have expected a transport settlement that was significantly grimmer than turned out to be the case. I congratulate the Department for Transport on doing so well in difficult times. We can all be relieved, to say the least.

I speak as a London MP, and I will unashamedly limit my remarks to London. Hon. Members will be glad to know that I also intend to keep my remarks brief. In my view, London has done rather well out of the transport settlement: Crossrail, tube upgrades, Thameslink and extra rolling stock are all good announcements for London. I know that hon. Members from other regions often view London as being rather greedy in its funding needs. However, I must point out that London is our capital city, and it will be one of the great driving forces behind getting back to economic growth. I cannot resist the danger of irritating hon. Members even further by directing their attention to an interesting article in The Economist that points out that investment in capital projects such as those in transport in London and the south-east tends to get a much better return than investment in other regions. Investment in transport projects around London is always money well spent.

[Martin Horwood]

I would like to point out that I was not accusing London of being greedy. I welcome investment in many London projects, particularly Crossrail, which will enable people to get into London, through it and out the other side quite quickly.

[Angie Bray]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that additional helpful remark. Crossrail has always been a huge issue for my constituency and it sits at the heart of our plans for regenerating Ealing and Acton town centres. We hoped so much to get the news that the project would definitely go ahead, and there was a huge sigh of relief around my constituency once that announcement was made in the comprehensive spending review. We hope that Crossrail will bring greater numbers of visitors to both town centres. It will be our task to find ways of persuading people off the Crossrail trains and into those town centres, where we hope that they will spend considerably more money. I understand that there may be some time slippage in the Crossrail project, but I suspect that that may also be due to tunnelling problems that have been encountered. Nevertheless, it is great to know that the project is going to go ahead in its entirety.

I have a plea for the Minister. Ealing Broadway station is one of the busiest transport hubs in west London. It is also one of the most hazardous, with steep stairs, no disabled access to the platforms and a small ticket hall that becomes crowded to an incredibly dangerous degree. Can work be expedited at that station, if at all possible? I hate to say this, but it is an accident waiting to happen.

The problem has been that people living in Ealing have been told for so many years that they cannot have any improvements because Crossrail is just round the corner. As we all know, however, Crossrail has been just round the corner for decades. Now that it really does seem to be on the home straight—in sight—please can there be no more delay for Ealing Broadway station? We have been waiting somewhat impatiently for the option designs for the stations, but I am now hoping to have a meeting with representatives of Crossrail in the next couple of weeks, so that we can see those more detailed options.

The London tube upgrades are another essential investment that will now go ahead. All of us experience the London underground at some stage as we spend time here in the capital city, and I think that all of us would say that the London underground broadly delivers a reasonable service, albeit that we sometimes feel like we are being herded into cattle trucks, particularly at certain times of the day. The problem is that there are continual and frequent problems on all the lines at one stage or another.

The signal box at Edgware Road is a good example. I am reliably told that it dates back to the 1920s. It sits across some incredibly busy and important lines. When we consider that so many passengers are under the control of a signal box that goes back that far, we recognise the importance of getting the London underground up to date if London is to retain its position as one of the world’s premier cities, and as we move back towards economic growth.

I was delighted to hear that the Thameslink programme had been given the green light, so to speak. That will be great news for taking pressure off many of the other services going through London and into and out of London. I was particularly pleased to hear today the announcement of extra rolling stock. West London services are very congested for quite a lot of the time, particularly during peak hours. A recent survey conducted by a local transport group showed that a very large percentage of passengers going in and out of central London from all the stations across Ealing have been finding not only that the trains are impossibly crowded, but that quite often they cannot get on them at all. First Great Western has been putting in bids for extra rolling stock for some time. I hope that as the extra rolling stock is rolled out, the Minister will have a particularly keen ear for the bids from First Great Western for extra help on some of those west London services.

Obviously, the less popular flipside of the coin is the fare increases. There is no doubt about this. No one likes having to pay more for a journey that at best is only ever the same, but quite often seems to be getting worse as the carriages get more crowded or there are delays or other problems. Clearly, however, a balance must be struck between the interests of taxpayers and of passengers. That is always the problem.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside says that she fears that higher fares will encourage more people off public transport and back on to the roads. I accept that that may well be something to be concerned about, but surely it is equally true that only if we can provide new, modern, improved public transport will we encourage more people to use public transport. That is where the difficult balance lies. It always has to be a balance, and that balance has to be set, of course, in the context of what the public purse can afford.

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[Mrs Villiers]

I will come on to road safety in a moment, but it remains an extremely high priority for the Government. However, the shadow Minister makes a key point about the importance of enforcement in relation to overseas-run HGVs. We will continue to put a priority on those enforcement mechanisms. I cannot give him the precise figures. Across the board, we will be looking to do things in a more efficient way, but if we can, we will prioritise resources to help us to deal with that very significant problem—I agree with him that it is a major problem.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside also asked whether there was a departure from road-widening and building towards more of a traffic management approach, including a managed motorway approach. I think that there is some truth in that. We want to make greater use of a managed motorway programme as a more cost-effective way to deliver more capacity. Regarding road improvements, our focus is on trying to target the worst traffic bottlenecks, because remedying those bottlenecks will deliver the greatest economic benefit. So we recognise that making better use of our existing road capacity should be a very important part of our strategy.

We also need to look, in a balanced way, at whether we can address a transport problem by using a public transport outcome. We need to look afresh at the way that we approach the national roads programme overall.

The Chairman of the Select Committee also expressed concern about cuts in the budget allocated to road maintenance. We are continuing to allocate very significant funds to road maintenance at both a national and local level. However, we recognise the need to deliver more for less. Safety is, of course, paramount. However, the road network is one of the nation’s most valuable economic assets, so we must ensure that we spend appropriately to maintain it in a good condition. Nevertheless, we feel that better commercial management and better contracting can lead to considerable savings, and we feel the same is true of making the most of collective national buying power, encouraging local authorities to link up together so that they can build their buying power, and reviewing some of the technical standards to extend the life of assets. All those methods are ways to cut costs without compromising safety.

However, there is no doubt that we have had to take some difficult decisions about spending on both local and strategic roads. To help local authorities to deal with spending reductions, we will cut red tape to give them more freedom to make their own decisions. We are carrying out a radical simplification and reform of local transport funding. Our plan is to move from 26 grant streams to four, beginning in 2011-12. That will include £560 million for local sustainable transport projects, including Bikeability cycle training.

Several hon. Members discussed buses. The hon. Members for Cheltenham and for Liverpool, Riverside expressed concern about the reduction in the bus service operator grant commencing in 2012-13. I understand their concerns; that was probably one of the most difficult transport decisions in the CSR. I hope that they recognise that the reduction is far less severe than many predicted. We argued the case passionately with the Treasury. We recognise how crucial bus services are to people on a wide range of incomes and in a wide range of areas, which is why we put the case so strongly in the CSR in order to get a fair outcome on buses.

[Martin Horwood]

I acknowledged in my remarks how well the Department had done in defending the bus service operator grant relative to expectations, but the Minister will recall that the combined impact of the cut in BSOG, the funding arrangements for the concessionary fares scheme and the cuts in local government spending could have a high-risk effect on bus services, particularly rural ones.

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[Mrs Villiers]

The hon. Gentleman puts that representation well. I am sure it will be duly taken on board as the scheme progresses.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) and the hon. Member for Cheltenham expressed anxiety about the fate of the Swindon-Kemble project. The hon. Member for Cheltenham said that it could end up with the dubious label of being the only rail project cancelled by this Government. In reality, the funding was never in place from the previous Government. It was never confirmed. I believe that the business case is good and that it would be great in terms of increasing the resilience of services to Wales. There are all sorts of good reasons to do the project, but at the moment it just does not look affordable. However, there is every chance that we could seek to take it forward in the next Network Rail spending control period.

[Martin Horwood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mrs Villiers]

I shall carry on; otherwise the Committee Chairman will not have a chance to speak at the end.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), expressed concern about type 26 frigates. I will certainly take that back to my colleagues in the Department. I have noted his concern about the impact that that might have on piracy. That is obviously a crucial issue we need to address today. He also asked when a road safety strategy will be published. It will be published in due course at some point in the new year. I was somewhat surprised by his comments on air passenger duty because, as I pointed out to him, the increases about which he is concerned were set out in the Labour Chancellor’s Budget and implemented through a Finance Bill that was enacted during the term of his Government. He has had something of a road to Damascus conversion on APD.

I have already dealt with the hon. Gentleman’s points on TRANSEC and the personnel there. He also made the valid point that ports and shipping often do not get the attention they deserve, given their huge importance to the economy. I certainly agree. Whether or not we are in government, it is vital that we recognise the importance of our history as a maritime nation and the economic benefits generated by ports and the shipping industry.

In conclusion, faced with the scale of the deficit we inherited, the easy option would have been to slash capital spending on transport projects. We have chosen not to do that; we have chosen to look at the long-term interests of the economy. That is why, over the next four years, we will spend more than £30 billion on road, rail and local transport projects across Britain, despite the dire financial situation that we inherited from our predecessors. I thank everyone who has taken part in this very interesting debate.