Traffic Management Bill

Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2004.

Standing Committee A

Clause 16 - The network management duty

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I beg to move amendment No. 96, in

page 7, line 5, after 'authority', insert

'(which shall not include the body corporate known as Transport for London established under the Greater London Authority Act 1999)'.

Nigel Beard (Labour, Bexleyheath and Crayford)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 126, in

clause 31, page 13, line 33, after 'Wales', insert 'or Transport for London'.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

The amendment would remove from the Bill the additional powers reserved to the Secretary of State over and above those reserved to him under the Greater London Authority Act 1999 by removing the reference to the GLA and the Mayor.

I do not intend to press the amendment; I want to find out the Government's thinking in respect of the GLA's devolution settlement. The 1999 Act sets out those matters that were considered appropriate for devolution, and transport and all that goes with it was a major part of the settlement. The Act makes clear the division of responsibilities between the Mayor, the GLA, local authorities and the Government.

The amendment would effectively remove the GLA from the clause, but I want to know whether the Government are intentionally looking at what was settled on the GLA and seeking to draw it back out of the settlement, or whether it is a precautionary measure by officials to accrue power, which they do as often as they can. My suspicion is that it is not deliberate and intentional. I suspect that the Government do not intend to reconsider the devolution settlement for London; rather, the Bill takes a belt and braces approach to try to reserve as much power as possible to the Secretary of State.

Having looked into the matter of reserve powers, I can find no precedent for such a move in other legislation or by other Departments. That raises an important point of principle. I therefore ask the Minister whether there is a deliberate desire to pull back powers that have been devolved, or whether it is thought to be good to get the powers back. If it is the latter, I wonder whether that course of action has been checked through, whether it has been discussed with ministerial colleagues with responsibility for London, and whether it fits within the devolution settlement.

The point that I am seeking to address is whether a deliberate move is being made to reduce the devolutionary powers and return them to the Department, or whether it is not specifically intended to do that. Since, in the latter case, the clause does do

that, I wonder whether it is appropriate that it should be done in that way.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Beard, for the first time I think, and I look forward to serving under Miss Begg when she is with the Committee.

I draw hon. Members' attention to a document about the guidance notes and statutory instruments that will follow if all the elements of part 2 are passed, and that, as we promised, is a short road map on such matters. I hope that that is of some assistance to the Committee.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for speaking to the amendment, although I am not entirely sure how to respond, given that its key thrust is to ask whether the provisions are a deliberate attempt to affect the devolution settlement in the way that he described. I rather hope that most of the things that we are doing in the Bill are deliberate and informed, and have been thought through, but I take the hon. Gentleman's underlying point. The provisions are in no way designed to unpick the devolution settlement. The amendment seeks to exclude Transport for London from the general duty to manage its road network and to remove its strategic role for co-ordinating street works across London.

The Government's proposals are quite deliberate—that will come as a great relief to my hon. Friends. The clause places a duty on every local authority to manage its road network, to secure

''the expeditious movement of traffic''

and to work with other authorities to facilitate the movement of traffic. That duty is especially important in conurbations, not least London. TFL is particularly well placed to ensure effective co-ordination across the city. There are 35 highway authorities in London, 32 boroughs, the City of London, TFL and the Highways Agency. Without attempting to disaggregate or unpick the devolution settlement, it is right and proper, given the thrust of all that we seek to do in the Bill, that all those authorities are afforded the chance to have the statutory duty in question. The provisions are intended to hold TFL and the boroughs accountable on their statutory duties to manage the network and keep it flowing. That is important, not least because although TFL's clearly defined responsibility is for 5 per cent. of the strategic roads across London, those roads account for 30 per cent. of the traffic. Given the Bill's broad thrust, excluding TFL and its role as a highway authority from all the duties and responsibilities in part 2 and in clause 16 would be nonsensical.

I expect to hear today the general mantra that any given highway authority is not necessarily responsible or that the causes of congestion are beyond its boundaries in the next-door borough or authority. If so, some co-ordination and liaison are, equally, important. There are swings and roundabouts. I do not want to pre-empt future discussion, but we say later in the Bill that the balance of network management duties between TFL and the London boroughs should be reconfigured. We intend to afford

TFL greater powers to revisit the strategic network, because a number of important roads, not least some key bus routes, bus priority network routes and red routes, are outwith the current strategic network. Excluding those from TFL's overarching role would be nonsensical. The provisions are not intended to unpick the devolution settlement. TFL must deliver on its statutory duty to manage the strategic network, and it must therefore be included in the Bill's scope. TFL's role will be enhanced rather than diminished. On that basis, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment No. 126 is inappropriate for the same reason. Given all that the Bill is designed to address, to remove TFL's role as a local traffic authority from the equation would do nothing to address congestion and network management in London. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment, although I take the import of and thrust behind what he said about the devolution settlement.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I am grateful for that explanation, which will certainly be helpful, particularly in the context of other, more specific amendments that we shall reach later. I am also grateful, as I am sure others are, for the guidance notes relating to part 2 that the Minister drew to our attention. I am sure that they will help our consideration.

I am certain that the actions taken by the Minister and his team were deliberate. Not for a moment would I suggest that they were not. I was really trying to discover whether the consequences of the actions were as deliberate as they might have been. However, I shall not pursue the proposal at this stage, as I should like to consider more carefully what he has said. It is probably correct to say that some of the more detailed questions that will be raised under later amendments are the proper way to test what he has said. For the moment, I am content to leave the matter. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I beg to move amendment No. 97, in

page 7, line 7, after first 'objectives', insert

'including safety and environmental objectives'.

Nigel Beard (Labour, Bexleyheath and Crayford)

With this we may discuss the following amendments:

No. 146, in

page 7, line 8, after 'the', insert 'safe'.

No. 147, in

page 7, line 10, after 'the', insert 'safe and'.

No. 33, in

page 7, line 11, at end insert

'; and

(c) securing compliance with provisions of the Highway Code and road traffic legislation'.

No. 98, in

page 7, line 11, at end insert—

'(ba) improving safety on the authority's road network both for vehicular traffic and for pedestrians

(bb) enhancing the environment on and around the authority's road network in terms of reducing the levels of noise and pollution

(bc) facilitating overall transport policy objectives set out in relevant Local Transport Plans and Regional Transport Strategies

(bd) facilitating overall transport policy objectives set out in relevant Local Transport Plans, in London the Mayor's Transport Strategy and Local Implementation Plans, and Regional Transport Strategies;'.

No. 148, in

page 7, line 14, after 'the', insert 'safe and'.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I return to the questions of safety and of the environment. I shall speak first about safety. In considering part 1, we discussed whether it was appropriate to give traffic officers a specific duty in respect of safety. The debate was helpful, and I was broadly persuaded that a specific duty at the point at which I sought to introduce it was not appropriate and might have given too much weight to instructing traffic officers to have regard to safety, as opposed to their having a general regard to safety.

At this point, however, a different case applies, in that traffic managers should have a fairly specific duty with regard to safety. Unlike traffic officers, traffic managers will not be on the streets undertaking actions to unblock congestion, but will be more concerned with overall planning, strategy and objectives. It would be more than appropriate, therefore, for safety to be one of their paramount considerations.

The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) put it to the Committee on Tuesday that safety is inherent in any form of management. At the time, I said that that was true, but there are many examples of management for which safety, and particularly health and safety, are drawn out from overall management and made a specific duty because of their importance. I know that I share with many Government Members my concern about health and safety legislation for the workplace, which is extremely important.

Anyone who serves on any board of any company will know that health and safety appears as a specific item on the agenda. In a plc board, reference is made to it. It is one of the things that are looked for in proper and good corporate governance. There are clear precedents to show that safety is so important that it can be taken out of general management duties and referred to specifically. In considering the role of traffic managers, I believe that it would be appropriate to do so. I see no reason why, in asking traffic managers to perform all the roles that are required of them, we should not underline the importance of road safety. After all, many things can be done at the planning stage to enable our roads to become safer, an objective that we all share.

A similar argument pertains to environmental duties. In recent years, in every area of life, particularly in Government, we have, rightly, paid increasing regard to the environmental consequences of our actions. One of the greatest benefits of reducing congestion is that it reduces pollution, and that has the tremendous knock-on benefit of reducing the incidence of asthma and other respiratory diseases in our cities.

That is why I am so much in favour of the principle of the Bill.

Like safety, good environmental practice is so important that the Bill should emphasise that traffic managers, in planning how best to achieve the free flow of traffic in their areas, should do so in such a manner as not to conflict with it. My point is the same with regard to both safety and the environment: I seek to lay a specific duty on traffic managers to have regard to both in drawing up plans and seeking to unblock congestion.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

I tabled some of the amendments in the group. They are all about safety and safe movement, like some of those of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso). I tabled similar amendments in relation to traffic officers. Given that the number of accidents has been reduced in my constituency, where one of the key features in road design has been the promotion of safe driving, I believe that there is a role for local authorities in ensuring that driving is safe. As the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said, that is implicit in the Bill. However, I am concerned that the free movement of traffic should be considered with explicit reference to safety. Going by the number of complaints among my emails about my Lib Dem-controlled council and the problems caused by yesterday's slight dusting of snow, perhaps my view has weight. I accept that there are implicit recommendations for safety but, given the importance of the issue, would the Minister consider making them explicit?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

This large group of amendments goes to the heart of the clause and to the duty of network management. I hope that the Minister will explain more about the justification for the network management duty and the elaborate legislative provisions in part 2 of the Bill. As the regulatory impact assessment makes clear, some networks are operated efficiently, with authorities actively involved in their management. They are above reproach, and nothing needs to be done to change the situation.

As a layman, I am bound to ask why, if some local authorities can do it without additional legislation, others cannot. The old principle of local authority accountability was that that was a matter between the electors and their elected councillors. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) has just made a party political point about the fact that his council is run by people who do not seem to be capable of so managing things that a light dusting of snow does not prevent the traffic from snarling up. I shall come later to an example from another local authority under different political control—

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

Conservative?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The Minister will have to wait until I give the details.

The justification given on page 2 of the regulatory impact assessment is that failure to legislate would preserve the status quo. If there were ever an obvious

statement, that is it. I am not sure that the Minister has justified the proposed changes to the status quo.

The Bill's objective is apparently to raise the standard of network management across all authorities. According to the regulatory impact assessment, the Secretary of State will be able to issue statutory guidance on the execution of duties. We do not have a draft of the statutory guidance, merely an indication of the areas that it might cover. Under clause 16, the ''network management duty'' seems to include every responsibility, legal or otherwise, placed on a highway, street or traffic authority. I do not know whether the Bill will prove more succinct than the existing law, or whether there will be an agreed hierarchy. Surely a hierarchy and prioritisation are issues that should be dealt with by the elected local authority and its councillors rather than by imposed guidance from the centre.

I want to test the Government's proposition against a local authority that is, according to the Government, manifestly failing: Northamptonshire county council, which has for the past 10 years been under Labour control. The council is underspending on its highway maintenance.

Nigel Beard (Labour, Bexleyheath and Crayford)

Order. The amendment is limited to the objectives of safety and the environment. The hon. Gentleman's remarks might be more suitable for the clause stand part debate.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I was going on to say that the council's underspending on highway maintenance has serious road safety implications. I am sorry if it has taken me a long time to get to that point, but I am sure that you, and the Minister, will agree with that, Mr. Beard. Underspending on highway maintenance increases congestion and leads to a waste of resources. In 2002–03, Northamptonshire county council paid £1.7 million in compensation because of defective highways. Much of that was as a result of claims made for injury, damage and loss caused by unsafe highways.

The Department for Transport wrote a letter to the county council on 19 December 2003 giving details of the local transport capital expenditure settlement. The letter stated:

''Capital allocations to reduce the maintenance backlog are also a major part of the local transport capital settlement. However, the allocations do need to be accompanied by appropriate levels of day-to-day maintenance.''

It continued:

''Our interest is in outcomes rather than inputs.''

I am sure that we all agree with that—

''However, the fact that your spending in Northamptonshire on maintenance over the last four years has been substantially less than the total of the county's standard spending assessment and allocations for this purpose leads us to question how the county council proposes to get maintenance standards back on track.''

During the four years in question, between 1999 and 2003, Northamptonshire county council had a standard spending assessment of more than £105 million, but its expenditure on highways was some £30 million less. In the current year, budgeted expenditure on highway maintenance in

Northamptonshire is £11.5 million, which is 35 per cent. below its formula spending share.

Bad maintenance leads to dangerous roads, pavements and cycle ways. It causes injuries to pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. It results in potholes not being repaired, overhanging shrubbery not cut back, traffic lights not maintained, and white lines not painted. Not much is more fundamental than having white lines on the roads painted properly. A special pressure group has now been set up to ensure that highway authorities paint their white lines, which is an extraordinary indictment of the management of many of our highway authorities.

Safety signs and street lighting are not kept in good condition, poor skidding resistance on roads is allowed to continue, and there is a failure to grit roads in icy weather in a timely fashion. There is also an issue about the safety of pedestrians, as the poor pedestrian is too often expected to struggle along because clearing ice and making pavements safer is the highway authority's last priority. That can result in many injuries and enormous suffering. The accident and emergency departments of our hospitals are filling up with people who have broken their hips or other parts of their limbs after falling in snow and ice.

If Northamptonshire county council carries on as it has done, will it be in breach of its network management duty?

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

It hasn't got one yet.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Yes, but we are debating whether there is any purpose in giving such a council a network management duty in addition to the other duties that it already has and is in breach of. The Labour county council has had a rap over the knuckles from the Labour Government, but where are the sanctions? If we are going to approve the establishment of a network management duty, people in Northamptonshire will want to know what difference it will make on the ground in their authority, which on any objective assessment is failing on highway maintenance.

What objective criteria will be used to assess compliance with the network management duty? The process appears to be subjective. Subsection (2) refers to the highway authority taking

''any action which they consider'',

which suggests that the authority will be the final judge of what is reasonable.

The Under-Secretary can use the example of Northamptonshire county council to demonstrate how the situation will be different with a network management duty and why the Government cannot act without additional legislation under the present rules and regulations and given their powerful position as the provider of resources under Northamptonshire's local transport plan.

The state of the local road network is still declining, not just in Northamptonshire. That was the clear conclusion of the latest survey by the Institution of Civil Engineers. We also know from recent reports by

the Automobile Association and the RAC that many local authority highway departments are in a state of crisis, because they are not clearing the backlog of maintenance that the Government are intent on ensuring is cleared. Why, though, do we need part 2 of this Bill, and clause 16 in particular, to address those problems? Why are the Government not addressing them using their existing powers?

If the Under-Secretary can illustrate what will happen differently in Northamptonshire when clause 16 comes into effect, he may be able to persuade my hon. Friends and me that the clause is a worthwhile additional piece of legislation. However, when I read in the regulatory impact assessment that good authorities will be fulfilling the duties anyway, I wonder why additional duties have to be imposed on them and why the Under-Secretary feels unable to ensure that the less good authorities fulfil their duties.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

Without going fully down the road suggested by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) because that would require almost a Second Reading debate on all the clauses in part 2, rather than specifically on clause 16, let me say that many of the answers he requires will unfold as we discuss part 2 and his point is fair. When my Department formulated the Bill, similar arguments and philosophies were expressed. How can we reach a position in which all citizens can expect a high standard from all local authorities, regardless of where they live? How can that be balanced with as little intervention as possible from the centre, with local democracy and accountability prevailing? One route, as implied by the hon. Gentleman, is simply to look for failure and come up with criteria that state broadly what local authorities should do and what we should do if they fail.

The importance of network management is such that every authority in the country should live up to a particular standard and every citizen should expect that standard from their authority. That is implicit in the rest of the paragraph in the regulatory impact assessment, to which the hon. Gentleman failed to refer. Of course, if the phrase

''a failure to legislate will preserve the status quo''

was on its own or the end of the sentence, it would be at least a truism if not an absurdity. However, a comma follows, and the sentence continues:

''in which the Government believes that there is insufficient demand made of highway authorities to ensure that they manage their networks in a holistic way, with the interests of road users in mind.''

The full sentence carries the import behind the Bill. We are determined that network management will be best achieved by the duties outlined in clause 16, which is what the amendments would change. We will return to the general thrust of some of the early amendments, particularly amendment No. 97, in the context of how much in the Bill should define network management duties.

This situation has a touch of déjà vu, as it reminds me of the passage of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill last year, in which we were trying to provide for a statutory duty on planning. The question is whether we take a shopping-list approach and

include everything in the Bill or frame the legislation sufficiently broadly to encompass all that is required. If I seriously believed that including safety and environmental considerations in the definition of the network management duty would improve the Bill, I would find it easy to say that it was a lovely idea and that we would include it. However, I am told that we would then suffer from ''undue specificity''—I do not know whether I have made that phrase up or whether it is a legalistic one. We all agree that safety and environment are important but, ironically, the more specific detail in the Bill, the weaker the duty becomes.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

So far, the Under-Secretary's remarks have carried Opposition Members with him. I accept his point that if the words ''safe'', ''environment'' or ''considerations'' happen to be missing, it would be ludicrous to suggest that local traffic authorities would start to pursue environmentally noxious schemes that were unsafe. Does he consider the duty to provide adequate road signs to be part of the traffic authorities' responsibility? Many motorists find that when they travel to an unfamiliar city centre, their journeys are lengthened by not knowing which exit to take on a ring road. More could and should be done on road signage to improve traffic flows.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

In the context of better flows, network management and the relief of congestion, experts are catching up with ordinary people and starting to understand that signage, especially early signage, is important. I hope that road signage, among other things, will be included following discussions with local authorities and other stakeholders—I hope that hon. Members will forgive me for using that word, but I cannot think of a better one, so it will have to do for now.

I assure hon. Members that the network management duty will have environmental and safety issues at its core. At the Department for Transport level, key Government public service agreements are all about road safety and congestion, with all that those imply in terms of local duties. Local transport plans and regional transport strategies are drawn up in the context of road safety and environmental issues. The sustainable development framework, which will overarch the entire planning system when the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill becomes law, will be at the root of regional spatial strategies, within which regional transport strategies will have to be formulated.

The issue of undue specificity is therefore very real, and I urge hon. Members not to fall into the trap of feeling comfortable about amending the Bill in a way that would ultimately limit the duty. It is far better to have a comprehensive duty that is codified in guidance. As I said, we have started consulting—I almost said negotiating with—local authority and other organisations that have an interest in precisely defining the duty.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

If I understand correctly, the Minister is giving a most welcome assurance that the safety and

environmental issues that I sought to address will feature heavily in the guidance.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I can certainly give that assurance. As I have tried to make clear, the new planning system will mean that a range of duties have to be taken into account in the context of safety, environmental and other issues, and the statutory duty must be seen in that context. I can also give an assurance that there will be consultation during drafting and the subsequent phases of the guidance, and that is right and proper.

In that context, we must consider how to strike a balance and secure the duty at local level. The same understanding underpins much of the Bill in terms of the interface between central and local government. That is why, later in the Bill, we introduce a range of options and discretionary powers that authorities may use in carrying out the duty.

Amendment No. 33 refers to compliance with the ''Highway Code'' and road traffic legislation. On the face of it, that seems entirely appropriate, but the code is principally for road users, not the highway authorities. Authorities carrying out the network management duty would, therefore, end up in the faintly ridiculous position of being responsible for a range of duties over which they have no control, which cannot be appropriate. For example, issues such as the phasing and location of traffic lights in much of London are controlled from the centre by the transport operational command unit. At its broadest, however, the amendment would mean that each London borough was responsible for a range of matters relating to traffic lights, even though they have no immediate control over traffic lights. Similarly, it would mean that authorities had responsibility for, but no control over or legislative duties in respect of, compliance with the ''Highway Code''. I do not want to focus on the ridiculous, but ''Highway Code'' code compliance for the road user could involve issues such as the herding of animals, clothing for horse riders, the flashing of headlights, driving in fog and a host of other things that would be inappropriate in the context of a network management duty. We cannot impose a whole series of criteria on a highway authority and judge against them when that authority has no legislative control over them.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Before the Minister sits down—

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I was not going to, but of course, I will give way.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Does the Minister intend to respond in the clause stand part debate to my more general points about Northamptonshire? If he is, I will not press him now.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

In my limited time as a Minister, I have learned not to be so presumptuous as to read the Chairman's mind. There may well not be a clause stand part debate, so I cannot promise to elaborate on matters then. The hon. Gentleman reasonably asked me to elaborate on what the word in Northamptonshire will be after the Bill is passed. I would happily do that over a cup of tea, but I cannot elaborate on that in the context of these narrow amendments, because I would have to spend about

another hour on my feet, cross-referencing any number of other elements in the Bill.

The hon. Gentleman cogently made the case for there to be such a duty in Northamptonshire or elsewhere. It cannot be right that we simply hope on a wing and a prayer that every highway authority lives up to best practice and the best model in the country, which may well be Conservative, Labour, or Liberal Democrat—I am not sure. Funnily enough, when one is a Minister, and sometimes it is not terribly enjoyable, one must at least pretend to be above the partisan fray and be terribly ministerial and non-partisan. That is difficult for me, as the hon. Gentleman will know, but I make up for it in other ways outside Committee.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

We certainly know that the Minister has a reputation for being non-partisan in this House, and when we talk about Labour control of Northamptonshire county council, I can understand why he particularly wishes to be non-partisan. Will he explain why the Government cannot do anything at this time about the manifest failings of that council? Surely they already have some powers that they could use, perhaps under the local transport plan process.

Nigel Beard (Labour, Bexleyheath and Crayford)

Order. The hon. Gentleman is again trespassing into an area that will be a legitimate part of the stand part debate. This debate is confined to safety and the environment.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

If we do have a stand part debate, we can elaborate on the philosophy behind the duty. During the genesis of the Bill, we discussed whether there should be a blanket statutory duty that all should aspire to achieve, or simply focus on failure. It was felt that the universal approach was more appropriate.

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

I am completely convinced. The clarity of the Bill in having that single duty rather than lots of subsidiary but obvious duties is wholly admirable, and I am glad that the Minister intends to carry on with it.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

In the spirit of being non-partisan, I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's comments, although I am temporarily stunned. It is always good to be surprised so early in the Committee stage. I hope that we can forge links throughout the rest of the Bill.

To my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East, I say simply that the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 placed a new duty on local authorities to grit their roads; safety was a key reason why we felt that that duty was necessary. This is probably the first cold snap of weather that we have had since then, so we will see what happens.

The hon. Member for Christchurch left the impression that the Department for Transport, or its agents, will impose the definition of ''a hierarchy'' of roads on every local highway authority. Nothing could be further from the truth. We will insist, in the network management duty, that ''a hierarchy'' be identified locally and agreed with us. That is not using a Stalinist sledgehammer to crack a nut: it is about working with local government to secure a network

management duty, which, I hope we all agree, is worthy of achievement, as hon. Members will see when I stray into other areas of enforcement and intervention, which I shall not do now, Mr. Beard. We see that intervention, and the imposition of a traffic director, as the last stage in a long process: we want to work with local authorities to secure network management. These amendments all, in various ways, imply undue specificity. I am satisfied that the wider definition in the Bill is appropriate, and there will be further definition and specificity in the guidance notes. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross to withdraw the amendments.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I am grateful for that comprehensive explanation. We understand and concur with the necessity for clause 16, and the amendments sought to probe the Government's thoughts on safety and the environment. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East mentioned the problems that his local authority has had with the light dusting of snow, and the hon. Member for Christchurch mentioned problems caused by the light dusting of snow in Northampton. To complete the picture, I walked in from Pimlico this morning, where there is a Conservative-controlled council, and there were problems there too. To paint the picture completely, my constituency is in the independent Highland council area, and I understand that it has managed to clear the streets of Thurso.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

There aren't many.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

There are not, but the truth is that we get occurrences of snow far more often and are prepared for it every winter.

I am fascinated by the concept of undue specificity—a wonderful new word to enter the lexicon. I understand what the Minister was driving at, and have some sympathy with him. I have undertaken commercial negotiations and have inserted specific clauses to invalidate other points, but that was certainly not my intention here. I am grateful for the assurance that the Minister gave on consultation and the assurance that our points will be taken in the guidance. That is obviously welcome, and on the basis of that assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 83, in

page 7, line 20, at end insert—

'(2A)(i) The local traffic authority shall not reduce the width or number of carriageways or introduce any permanent restriction on motor vehicle traffic flows on their road network without first conducting a consultation exercise thereon to ascertain that any measures proposed have clear majority support amongst local residents, shopkeepers and those businesses likely to be affected.

(ii) The manner, nature and period of such mandatory consultation shall be determined by the Secretary of State.'.

Nigel Beard (Labour, Bexleyheath and Crayford)

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 24—Carriageway restriction (consultation)—

'(1) The local traffic authority shall not reduce the width or number of carriageways or introduce any permanent restriction on motor vehicle traffic flow on their road network without first

conducting a consultation exercise thereon to ascertain that any measures proposed have clear majority support amongst local residents, shopkeepers and those businesses likely to be affected.

(2) The manner, nature and period of such mandatory consultation shall be determined by the Secretary of State.'.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

We have had some dangerous talk from the Minister this morning—dangerous for him. Perhaps I should warn him not to announce too often that he likes to be ministerial and non-partisan: when Lady Thatcher was Prime Minister, if she ever heard one of her Ministers making such a comment, she took the view that he had gone native and he was very soon relieved of his ministerial duties. I give the Minister that friendly warning.

Amendment No. 83 and new clause 24 seek to cure what I believe is a widespread problem, arising from the conflict between the stated aims of the Bill and the current behaviour and attitude of many local authorities. There are a number of reasons for that conflict. Some councillors seem to hold a misguided view that removing traffic makes city centres more popular. Across England and Wales, roads are closed in city after city; one-way systems are introduced; traffic lanes are narrowed; pavements are widened. We are told that that is in the interests of making the city centre more desirable. However, at the same time, the number of shoppers going into city centres appears, in some cases, to be on the decline: the public prefer to visit out-of-town shopping centres, where they can drive up to the entrance of the shopping mall, park their car for nothing, and do their shopping with ease.

If a local traffic authority suggests the introduction of road narrowing, pavement widening or traffic restrictions, a duty should be imposed on it to consult people living and businesses operating in the locality to see whether that is what is wanted. In too many cases, weak councillors and in-house officers, who, frankly, should be contracted out, advance new traffic schemes in order, one feels in some cases, to justify their employment. Too many of those decision makers equate car use with pollution. We know that that is not necessarily the case. One thing on which we can commend the Mayor of London is the fact that drivers of non-polluting cars—electric vehicles or vehicles powered by liquefied petroleum gas—are exempt from paying the congestion charge. The Opposition welcome that.

The amendment and new clause would provide a duty to consult residents. I assume that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who is not present, would welcome that provision, in the light of his comments the other day about the introduction of unwanted and unnecessary speed humps in his constituency, against the wishes of local people. The provision would also enable local businesses to have a say.

Many years ago, I used to live in the city of Leicester, and part of that city was an area called Lee Circle, a prosperous and thriving area. A few months ago, I happened to visit Lee Circle and it was deserted, with many factories and properties unoccupied. The reason was that the people who at one time would have gone into the city of Leicester to shop prefer to

use one of the city's out-of-town shopping centres because of the anti-car, anti-motorist policy that the council has pursued for a number of years. For far too long, in too many cities, motorists have suffered from unnecessary meddling, which has affected their ability to travel freely.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

Is the hon. Gentleman not confusing a chicken-and-egg question? The building of out-of-town shopping centres causes the decline in the town centres, rather than the decline in the town centres giving rise to the out-of-town shopping centres.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

That would make an interesting study, but I do not think that it is the case.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

That kind of study has been done, and the point has been made over a number of years through the Royal Town Planning Institute and similar organisations.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman and I should put in for a debate in Westminster Hall, in which we could explore that matter in far greater detail than the confines of the Committee allow. I do not accept his point. I believe that, by and large, shoppers prefer the greater range of goods and shops available in city centres, if they can get there without difficulty, and if they can park their cars with ease, and without having to pay too much for the privilege.

I referred earlier to the city of Leicester. One would have thought that if Leicester wanted to attract back some of the customers who go to out-of-town shopping centres, the council would have given the public some incentive to go back into the city. However, it has recently decided that every on-street car-parking place in the city must be paid for, so there is now no free on-street parking in Leicester. That is unlikely to entice people back into the city centre because, for the moment, they can park free at an out-of-town shopping centre. Even if the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East contains some merit, I do not see that it would necessarily lead him to oppose the amendment or new clause, because all we are saying is, ''Let's consult.'' What is wrong with that?

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

My right hon. Friend has made some powerful points. Under Governments of both political persuasions, planning permissions have been given in large numbers for out-of-town retail centres. Such centres now exist, and I do not believe that the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East is suggesting that they should be closed down. We have to live with them.

My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) is right to say that, given the choice, many of our constituents would choose to drive to a convenient out-of-town centre and park in a free car park by the door of the shop, rather than battling with the difficulties of many town and city centres, which are created by traffic restrictions and inadequate and costly parking. Many local authorities have decided to create an artificial scarcity in parking in the centre of the town or city, enabling private operators to charge extremely high prices. There is therefore both a price deterrent and a physical limitation. The physical limitation greatly increases

congestion and pollution because many motorists circulate, desperately trying to find a car park that still has some spaces, often involving long detours and unnecessary journeys.

My right hon. Friend is right to suggest that there should be some democratic and popular constraint on road closures, diversions and the reduction of carriageways. An unhealthy process is under way in many parts of the country. It usually begins with the objective of reducing speed and flows on a main road so that extra lights, chicanes and carriageway reductions or narrowings go in on the main highway. Frustrated motorists then seek alternative routes, and a series of rat runs develops and becomes much more popular. They often go through residential areas, and people living along the rat runs are naturally unhappy. They often campaign for greater restrictions on the rat run route than there are on the main route that people are trying to avoid. They are often successful, and then we have a further reduction in the capacity of the local road network alongside the capacity reduction of the principal highway. It becomes a vicious spiral resulting in much more congestion, pollution and frustration.

Rarely do the local authorities undertaking such projects put in a good public transport alternative to give people a chance to use a bus or train for their journey instead of having to battle with the restrictions in road space. While I welcome and support my right hon. Friend's amendment, I suspect that it will be only a partial answer. It may be the case, where the restrictions are to be imposed on a local road used as a rat run, that they will be popular if the consultation is limited to those who live along it. Any of us living on such a route would obviously like to see the traffic restricted. The issue is how wide the consultation should go.

My right hon. Friend's amendment highlights and would tackle the problem. It would work in terms of principal routes. As my analysis has shown, the cycle of road restriction and increased congestion often begins with attempts to reduce and limit the use that people can make of the principal highway where proper consultation in the whole surrounding area might produce a counter balance. My right hon. Friend and I, in proposing the amendment, need to ask how the legitimate aims of the Highways Authority can be met without imposing such restrictions. It has one important, legitimate aim: the promotion of safety. Instead of restricting the carriageway space on main routes, the local authority should encourage more segregation between different types of user and more segregation of traffic moving or turning in different directions. Far from narrowing carriageways, we need wherever possible segregated right and left-turning lanes and segregated areas for cyclists, not on the main carriageway, to avoid conflict between more vulnerable and less vulnerable road users.

I am a strong believer that we need much safer roads, and better design, particularly at junctions, could make an important contribution. Many the

so-called safety schemes that I see around the country increase the dangers; certainly the type that involve artificial chicanes, which encourage a game of chicken between dangerous drivers, are undesirable. We cannot rely on the common sense and goodwill of all drivers when approaching those chicanes, sometimes priorities are less than clear and some of the narrowing of carriageways is also dangerous because, on a busy road with two or more lanes, if the lane is too narrow, a motorist behaving himself can be horribly squeezed by a bus or large articulated lorry that finds it genuinely difficult to stay within its tram lines; indeed, in some cases, it is impossible because of the artificial narrowing of routes.

Local authorities should therefore be under a greater duty of care. There is a strong safety reason for encouraging better design of highways and, where possible, widening rather than narrowing principal routes.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

Thank you, Mr. Beard, for privately clarifying why amendment No. 83, which refers to traffic flows, was to be taken on its own, whereas new clause 24, which refers to traffic flow, was originally to be taken with the previous group. I am enormously grateful for your explanation of that mystery.

The right hon. Members for East Yorkshire and for Wokingham made several comments with which we have some sympathy. The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire does Leicester a slight disservice. It is in the middle of developing an extremely elaborate park-and-ride scheme that is supposed to be the other half of the equation that he described. I do not know where it will go, but Leicester is working on it. The right hon. Gentleman's characterisation was therefore unfortunate.

Parking schemes and strategies will be included in the local transport plan process. Authorities are rewarded according to their plans for parking. That may not have been done very much in the past, but I certainly envisage the LTP process, with its rewards and recognition of failure, as being part of the way in which we can try to influence local authorities. The two amendments—one amendment, save for an extra ''s''—aim to place additional duties on local highway authorities. They are unnecessary, or rather, the composite amendment is unnecessary, and would affect three types of scheme that require new or amended traffic regulation orders. Those are: schemes that require new or amended traffic regulation orders and include the introduction of banned turns, bus, cycle and similar lanes, waiting restrictions and loading restrictions; schemes that include works such as narrowing, build outs and chicanes that are implemented for traffic calming purposes; and road-space allocation schemes that are not regarded as calming—for example, where traffic lanes are being narrowed or removed to provide wider pavements. That is broadly what the two right hon. Gentlemen suggested.

The consultation requirements for the first type of scheme are laid out in the Local Authorities' Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996, which make provision for consultation,

publication of orders in draft to allow for objections to be made and, if necessary, a full public inquiry. It is possible to make experimental orders to test schemes of traffic management that do not involve allowing for objections, but such orders can cover a period of only up to 18 months.

Consultation requirements for traffic calming schemes are set out in the Highways (Traffic Calming) Regulations 1999. They include a requirement to

''consult such persons or organisations representing persons who use the highway or who are otherwise likely to be affected by the traffic calming work as the highway authority thinks fit.''

That could cover the local residents, shopkeepers and businesses mentioned in the amendment, although ultimately that judgment is a matter for the local traffic authority.

Road-space allocation can often be part of a more significant traffic management scheme, and it would be good practice for the local highway authority to consult inclusively with affected parties, including local residents, traders and businesses. The local highway authority, usually elected members, must then take a decision while balancing the scheme's objectives against its local adverse impacts.

It is not usual procedure to require majority support for any local authority work. I was a councillor for 11 years, and would say that whenever one consults on a road traffic scheme, whether a chicane or barrier, the guaranteed result is 50:50, or a third that says yes, a third that says no and a third that could not care less. The notion of traffic management and tweaks and changes to the network management by plebiscite is not therefore appropriate.

Fuller and more substantive consultation than that already provided for may be worth considering as and when we consider the guidance notes for the network management duty. I am more than happy to broach the subject of consultation as a part of that process, but we feel, for the reasons I have set out, that the range of consultative processes already more than adequately covers those referred to in the amendments. I ask the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire to withdraw the amendment.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I heard what the Minister said, and it is superficially attractive. Will he address the question of temporary closures? As he pointed out, it is possible to have a temporary closure of up to 18 months without consultation. The amendment would deal with that issue, which is well worth addressing. I have an example from my own constituency, from Golf Links road in Ferndown. There was pressure from residents of that road for a road closure. The county council was about to carry the closure through when people in the wider Ferndown area, including shopkeepers and other interested people, got wind of it. They panicked and sent me a petition, which arrived here by recorded delivery on the day that the county council was due to meet. I had to phone the county council and fax the petition. As a consequence, the

council realised that the idea was not as popular as it had thought. An enormous amount of time and effort was wasted because the county council thought that the matter could be dealt with by the cheap and easy option of closing the road for 18 months and seeing what happened, but that would have exacerbated congestion on other roads in the area. That was not done with proper consultation, the consequence of which was a lot of ill feeling and expressions of bad faith by my constituents. All that could have been avoided if consultation had been required, even on a temporary closure of up to 18 months, as set out in the amendment and new clause.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I suspect that I am unable to help the hon. Gentleman. However, I am glad that he is no longer lost in Northamptonshire but has returned to his own constituency.

I suspect that a fundamental review of the assorted consultative processes would need at least some element of provision for the experimental and the temporary. That is right and proper. When it comes to the hon. Gentleman's example, although roads can be closed without consultation for up to 18 months, best practice as followed by the better highway agencies is to consult and go through the process as though a permanent change was proposed.

If the hon. Gentleman is asking me to exhort highway authorities to utilise all the consultative duties that they already have in a far more robust fashion, I am with him. If he is saying, however, that we must absolutely get rid of any notion of temporary closures or temporary orders that experiment and see whether something works, I cannot help him, as that degree of flexibility is necessary at local level. In the broad scheme of things, given the statutory and other consultation procedures for the three different types of orders that I have explained, I think that it is unnecessary to go down the road of the amendment, and I ask that it be withdrawn.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I thank the Minister for his response. To go back to his point about the city of Leicester, perhaps I should put on the record that I am very fond of the city. It is a place that I like to visit. However, if any authority develops and expands a park-and-ride scheme, what should come first: the park-and-ride scheme or the traffic restriction? Most people would think that the scheme should be put in place first. However, the motorist who visits Leicester has the pain, but is still waiting for the relief. That was my point. Under such circumstances, no wonder people decide to shop in out-of-town shopping centres.

The Minister's heart was not in his response. He appeared to be saying that he felt that if best practice were pursued, local authorities would consult widely. He said his view was that that should happen. All the amendment would do is make it compulsory for that consultation to take place. How can anyone who believes in the democratic process be against that? I therefore invite all members of the Committee who believe in the exercise of democracy to support the amendment.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 8.

Nigel Beard (Labour, Bexleyheath and Crayford)

It will be convenient also to discuss new clause 1—Street and road works undertaken by local highway authorities—

'It shall be a duty on every local highway authority to have regard to the need to keep traffic flowing when undertaking street and road works. They will be treated the same as other bodies and companies carrying out works that include street and road works.'.

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

It was not clear to me when reading clause 16 whether the traffic manager and the network management would deal with one of the big problems that I observe in the United Kingdom today, which is the street and road works undertaken by local authorities and highways agencies.

When I travel around this congested island on the complex and difficult journeys that a Member of Parliament needs to make to carry out his or her parliamentary and political duties, frequently having to go by car because there is no obvious public transport alternative, I often discover that my journey is impeded by street and road works. My random but, I am sure, entirely representative sample in recent months has shown me that around half those difficulties are created by local and national highways authorities; the works are not being done only by the statutory gas and electricity companies.

I am all in favour of the measures in the Bill that would expedite street works undertaken by the utilities, and I think that I can live with the rather bureaucratic system that has been designed to achieve that worthy aim. As one who is not noted for liking bureaucratic answers, I am on this occasion prepared to forget that obstacle in the hope that the scheme outlined in the Bill will have the better desired effect—namely, reducing disruption to the local and national highway network created by statutory undertakings entering roads or streets for legitimate purposes to carry out street works.

When I travel around looking at what local and national highways authorities do, I find that two things annoy my constituents, and, I suspect, the constituents of many other Members, beyond measure. I often see streets partially or wholly closed for street works at the busiest time of day on busy days of the year. I remember that, at the start of the winter term when all the schools were going back, a number of street works were started in areas near me by local authorities who had decided to start spending money just when parents had to start taking their children

back to school, having missed the opportunity to carry out those street works during the long, hot days of July, August and early September, when none of the schools was in operation.

I also notice the occasions when street lanes or whole roads are closed, and no street works are being undertaken. That, too, annoys my constituents and other frustrated motorists, who are not allowed to use all or a portion of the highway, and yet there is no visible work in progress when they encounter the restriction. We need a figure in authority, such as the traffic manager, with a duty to encourage better network management, who can say these things to the local authority, as well as to the statutory undertaker. The local authority's highways department should be told that it should not normally enter a street or road and carry out repairs or other street works at very busy times of the year or day. They should certainly be told that when they wish to pack up for the day or the evening and go home, they should put a temporary or permanent repair into whatever they are doing and reopen the road wherever possible, instead of leaving it closed and out of use for all the many hours when they are not working on it. It would make so much difference to our journeys around this country, particularly at busy morning and evening peaks if the local highways authority had to behave more sensibly, and was under some restraint to do so, just as it makes sense that statutory undertakers in the private sector should be told to restrict their entry on to the highway and their closure of the highway for necessary works.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

My right hon. Friend is making a very powerful case, but does he think that there ought also to be some sort of authority to enforce the timing for the provision of other services? For example, last year I happened to be coming into London from Heathrow at the busiest time, the evening rush hour, and one entire carriageway of what is one of the busiest routes into London was blocked by a refuse lorry, which was emptying dustbins at the height of the rush hour.

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

My right hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. I would go wider. There should be much more attempt to co-ordinate the activities of the highways authority with the statutory undertakers more generally. For example, if the highways authority decided that a particular road or street should be scheduled for substantial maintenance or resurfacing, it would be extremely sensible and prudent to contact all the statutory undertakers and tell them that they were about to dig up the street and ask whether works were planned over the next year or two. If so, then for goodness' sake, they could be done while the authority was opening up the street, and before it put down a wonderful surface.

All too often one sees the opposite happening: the highways authority goes through its process of structural maintenance or resurfacing; there is a wonderful new road or street for a week or two, then the next thing that happens is someone turns up with a pneumatic drill and opens up the street to do some maintenance on a gas pipe or put in a new electricity cable. That is madness, and it annoys not just the motorist but the taxpayer who sees a very nice

resurfaced highway being damaged. However much one persuades or requires the statutory undertaker to put the road back in a reasonable condition, it will never be the same again. A road that has been patched is never going to be the same as a road that has just had good structural maintenance or resurfacing and that has a very good, smooth, sensible surface as a result.

Many works that a local highways authority wishes to undertake can indeed be carried out day by day or evening by evening, and the road can be restored for the times when the men are not working. There has been a lot of edge strengthening in parts of the country that I drive through, and the road is often left partially closed overnight, when no works are being undertaken. It would be very easy for a contractor doing edge strengthening to decide how far he was going to get in his allotted hours that day, then to tidy up and to leave his stocks and supplies by the roadside or in a lay-by and not have to keep the highway closed for the 10, 15 or 16 hours when he is not working on that highway, before the next day when his workmen return.

Resurfacing can be done in sections, so the road can be restored to use very quickly. This happens in best practice local authorities, and it obviously happens where busy tasks are being undertaken, such as, for example, the resurfacing of the main runway at Heathrow. Nobody would expect a contractor resurfacing the main runway at Heathrow to pack up at 5 o'clock in the evening, leaving the runway closed overnight and through the early next morning until he came back. There is a method of resurfacing quickly, so that people are not too inconvenienced, and not many planes run out of fuel over Heathrow waiting for contractors.

If that can be done for the main runway at Heathrow, why cannot it be done for our main roads, local and national? They are equally important to many people and I would like us to apply the same management techniques, so that our infrastructure—I prefer to call it roads—can be used for as much of the time as possible.

The Minister will be interested to know what powers I have in mind, and how they will fit in with his legislation. Helpfully aided by those who decided to group the new clause with the stand part debate, I suggest that local authorities should be under the same restrictions and duties as statutory undertakers, as conferred by this and subsequent clauses. The traffic manager in the highways authority would have a responsibility to include good plans and best practice for the highways authority as well as for others who might enter the road to undertake roadworks. I should like him to have the strong powers that would become inherent were my new clause to be included in the Bill. Then, as the Bill makes clear, if the traffic manager failed to discipline his local authority and that authority was the main cause of congestion in the area because it was restricting the use of the road, the Government would have the power to intervene.

There would be a sanction that, even under my unadorned new clause, meant that the traffic manager had to take his duties seriously and provide restriction on the local authority in respect of damaging the highway. The new clause would also mean that the local authority could be governed by a permit system. Subsequent proposals set out many checks and balances on the permit system, and we might debate them.

I am open to persuasion from the Minister, if he would rather use some other method. I am sure that he and his team could come up with all sorts of technical and consequential amendments that would beautify and improve the simple structure that I propose. Suffice it to say for this debate that it is crucial that the Government, if they are serious about reducing congestion caused by those who enter the highway for the purposes of carrying out works, accept that some of the biggest offenders are local authorities.

Many authorities—I am not making a party political point—do not manage their roadworks well. They manage them for their own convenience, and for cost and budgetary cycle reasons, rather than with a view to the convenience of the road user—the taxpayer, who pays their wages and the bills for the works. We need to legislate to make such authorities aware that we, the users and taxpayers, are heartily sick of the fact that they do not allow us sufficiently to use the assets that we have bought and paid for, because they are often the culprits on temporary restrictions, lane closures and road closures.

I urge the Minister either to accept my new clause or to come up with an even better-drafted proposition that would fit neatly into the structure of the Bill and make sense for statutory undertakers.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I shall, of course, Mr. Beard, take on board your exhortation to dwell on the clause itself rather than new clause 1. I know that you will admonish me should I stray from such a venture.

The right hon. Member for Wokingham and I are in agreement. I am sorry to say that I am broadly in sympathy with what he said; if I say that much more during the next couple of weeks, I shall leave here scarred in some way. That troubles me, so I shall have to dwell on it during the lunch break.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

You will be a much better politician if you do.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

Me or the right hon. Member for Wokingham?

New clause 1 would place on local highway authorities the additional duty to consider the effects of their roadworks with a view to minimising congestion. It also aims, as the right hon. Member for Wokingham said, to place on highway authorities the same requirement to minimise the disruption caused by their works that applies to the utilities. The right hon. Gentleman has asked me to try to persuade him out of his course. That is what I shall do, given that I have some sympathy for his comments.

The Bill already covers highway authority works where appropriate, which reflects the fact that utilities and highway authorities both carry out works on the

highway. Overall responsibility for managing the road network also falls to highway authorities, which necessitates a different approach in some areas of the Bill. Read together, clauses 16(2)(b) and 17(4) cover

''the avoidance, elimination or reduction of road congestion or other disruption''

and the requirements that authorities must identify ''things''—a legal word, apparently—

''(including future occurrences) which are causing, or which have the potential to cause, road congestion or other disruption''

and must

''consider any possible action that could be taken in response''.

Both provisions apply to authorities carrying out their own works, which relates to the purpose of the first part of new clause 1.

Authorities are required under clause 17(5)(b) and (c) to monitor their own performance. They will have to have regard to guidance issued by the appropriate national authority under clause 18, which will cover the management of their own works. They may also be subject to intervention if they fail to fulfil properly their network management duty, so duties and sanctions will affect the way that the authorities manage their own works.

The right hon. Member for Wokingham alluded to the fact that the provisions on permits in part 3 allow for schemes to cover authorities' works. The existing duty under the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 already places a requirement on authorities to co-ordinate their works with utilities' works. Highway authorities also have a duty to keep a register of works, which the relevant regulations have provided must include utility works on their streets as well as their own works.

Clause 44 will allow the duties to be widened to cover other activities in the street that can cause disruption, such as the placing of skips and scaffolding. Clause 61 allows for information to be kept on the location of apparatus buried by the authority in the street. That shows that existing powers and those in the Bill mean that authorities will be subject to similar duties as utilities. That covers key areas of co-ordination, keeping records of equipment and registers of work.

There is also the basic duty to exercise power in carrying out work to expedite the movement of traffic. Given the broad sweep of existing legislation, married to the new statutory network management duty, a far better system will prevail for utility and highway authority street works.

That said, I am aware of the concern expressed by some utilities that although their activities are policed, no one polices local traffic authority works. However, the fundamental differences between authorities and utilities mean that different levers yield the same result. In the example of a local authority, none of us would want to underestimate democratic accountability and the power of the local electorate. Furthermore, the Bill's network management duty and the threat of

intervention in poorly performing authorities should allay any fears about an uneven playing field.

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Wokingham for allowing me to state for the record the fact that the guidance on exercising the network management duty will cover local traffic authorities' works in addition to the wider elements of the duty. I hope that, considering those reassurances, the right hon. Gentleman will not press new clause 1 and that we can continue to work in harmony and agreement.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The Minister is good at exhorting local authorities to engage in good behaviour, but, like me, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham is concerned about the quality of sanctions. There is no point in having duties unless they are accompanied by sanctions. Local highway authorities have powers, and will get more under the Bill, to order utilities to do something, and if those utilities do not act as ordered, they may be liable to criminal sanctions. However, local highway authorities do not apply the same principles to their activities and are not subject to any sanction whatever, let alone any criminal sanctions. That causes enormous resentment.

Even the sanction that a local authority that breaches statutory duties to keep the highway properly maintained may engender claims against it for damages does not work. Many local authorities pay out millions of pounds each year through their insurance companies, settling claims for breach of statutory duty to maintain the highway in the way that they should. We are concerned that there should be not just an equality of rhetoric, but substantively the same duties with comparable sanctions.

The Minister said in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham that there will be an ultimate sanction of intervention, but the part 2 guidance notes, which the Minister supplied to us today, say:

''The intervention powers are only expected to be used in extreme cases''.

That does not surprise me, because they are extremely complicated and bureaucratic. We will discuss them in more detail later. It is not surprising that the Minister says they will be used only in extreme cases, but I do not think that my right hon. Friend has only extreme cases in mind. We have in mind the run of the mill situation whereby a highway authority is not performing to the standard required for it to comply with its basic statutory duties and responsibilities. There is obviously a role for local people through the ballot box with elected local authorities, but some equality of sanction should also be applied to local authorities.

However much the Minister may exhort local authorities to behave responsibly in relation to the highways, he has not yet been able to satisfy me on the point. I take for an example Northampton—I will not go further into detail—which he admits is a failing authority. What can he do to persuade it to perform to a higher standard without going down the road of intervening, which he says would be appropriate only in an extreme case? I do not know whether that particular case is extreme, but perhaps he thinks it is

and he is prepared to intervene. If there is to be an effective duty, surely it should be matched by a sanction that will work. I hope that the Minister addresses those concerns.

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and to the Minister. I reassure the Minister that he and I will still find plenty of things to disagree about on the wider sweep of public policy and political philosophy. I would like him to rest assured that we will find plenty to disagree about on higher education, for example, or the conduct of government, but on this occasion I feel it right, within the spirit of the Committee, to be positive and constructive.

I am glad that the Minister understands the different tone that I have been adopting for those purposes: the Bill's intentions are wholly admirable and it is the purpose of consideration in Committee to get them across to those who must obey the law and to ensure that the right people have to do the right things to achieve the objective.

I am pleased that the Minister went so far as to say that he thinks there is a problem with local authority street works and that he wishes to tackle it in guidance. I am pleased that in some respects, as I have seen in the Bill, local authorities will be encouraged to use better practice. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said, we are not fully persuaded that there are enough teeth in the legislation, given the other requirements on local authorities and the bad or sloppy practice that we see in highways authorities up and down the country.

I was not moved to table the new clause following a conversation with utilities. My motivation was not that because they are subject to these powers so local authorities should be—that is a rather jealous approach, which is not in my character—but the fact that there is a serious problem with local highway authorities cluttering up the streets without realising what an important asset those are and their not making those streets available regularly enough to the taxpayers who provided them.

I shall not press the new clause at this stage, because having the Minister and his often loyal Back Benchers vote it down will not help my cause. However, the issue needs proper examination, and we might have to return to it when we see the overall balance of the Government's response. So far, Ministers have talked very gently, but they have not given ground, which is beginning to spoil the spirit of the proceedings just a little.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I do not have much to add, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for not pressing new clause 1.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 16 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 17 - Arrangements for network management

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I beg to move amendment No. 170, in

page 7, line 28, after 'manager)', insert

'for a period not exceeding 5 years'.

The amendment need not be debated at tremendous length. It is designed to find out what the Government think about the proposition that a traffic manager's appointment should not exceed five years. Such an arrangement would prevent complacency and long outsourcing contracts, which would be to the detriment of future generations of local taxpayers.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I think that I can be helpful. We do not intend, in any way, shape or form, to tell local authorities how to arrive at local solutions to the question of appointing designated officers called traffic managers. The reasons behind the notion that there should be a temporal dimension to the management of the network duty escape me. In the broad spirit of resisting the temptation to meddle in local matters, the Government are simply saying that there should be a network management duty for ever after Royal Assent. That duty, and our reasons for imposing it, will not go away in three or five years, and I do not understand the issue in that temporal sense.

To be frank, some people in local government feared that the Government would seek to impose such and such a person at M3 level in each engineering department and that the job description would be laid out centrally, along with everything else. We do not intend to do that. We are not imposing, in any way, shape or form, the how and where of the placement of network managers; we are simply saying that there should be a network management duty and a designated officer called the traffic manager.

The virtues of imposing a time limit therefore escape me. It would be like saying that every local authority must, under law, have a designated finance officer. Why should such an officer be there for only five years when local authorities face internal and ongoing external financial considerations for ever? The statutory duty and the designated officer who carries it out should be permanent features of local government. The reasons for a five-year limit therefore escape me, and I ask the hon. Member for Christchurch to withdraw the amendment.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

Having had something of a hand in drafting the amendment, I am happy to contribute to the debate. The amendment is born of my 11 years as a councillor, for six of which I was the leader of a local authority. It occurred to me then—nothing that has happened since has dissuaded me of this—that giving key senior officials contracts is far better than employing someone in their 40s until they are 60 or 65. In my experience, it is much easier to negotiate another five-year contract with someone than to consider bringing in someone new if the incumbent is not up to the job.

I am in no way suggesting that the problem that we are addressing will go away in five years. If there is a need for a traffic manager, there is a need for a traffic manager. Such key officials are usefully put on five-year contracts, which focuses their minds wonderfully to do exactly whatever the job is. The Minister talked about finance directors. If I recall my days in local government rightly, our chief executives and finance

officers were on five-year contracts, which worked wonderfully. Our local authority set the pace in achieving change and delivering better value for money to our ratepayers, as they were in those days. The Minister misunderstands if he thinks that someone would be in the post for only five years. [Interruption.] The authority that the Minister is looking for is Wansdyke, which has since been abolished, although that was nothing much to do with my tenure.

There is a matter of principle behind the amendment, about whether we should dictate to local authorities how they go about their duties. I have always believed that fixed-term contracts, which are renewable until the age of 65, are a good tool for getting better performance out of people.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I thought that I said clearly that I had tried to read the runes to see what was behind the amendment, which I supposed was either the temporal consideration or an attempt to meddle in the internal affairs of local authorities. The hon. Gentleman has kindly told me that the answer is the latter, in which case I am even more against the amendment than if it had been the former. We have said in the strongest terms that although we are setting the framework and the statutory duty, it is not our business to dictate centrally, in some neo-Stalinist fashion, where in the authority, at what pay rate and for what term of contract the traffic manager should be appointed. Those are matters for the local authority. Our only concern is that authorities ensure that traffic managers fulfil their duties.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

That argument ill becomes the Minister, when he himself is on a five-year contract. What is the problem?

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

The problem is that my contract is a personal contract between the 86,549 voters of Harrow, East and me. It is up to those voters whether I endure in my post. Nobody imposes the five-year term of that contract on me. I know what that contract is when I enter into it. It is right and proper that there be a single MP for that area and that the contract endures. It is not for central Government to dictate to local government how duties should be achieved, other than through what we have set out in guidance and in the panoply of other matters in the Bill. We have said clearly that we want the relevant duties to be in statute. We want them to be fulfilled, and there are sanctions in case they are not. We need a designated officer to secure those duties, which is the right and proper way to go. It is up to local authority authorities to determine the pay, the bread rations and whatever else of that manager. That is entirely proper in the general scheme of things, given the relationship between central Government and local government.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

I beg to move amendment No. 152, in

page 7, line 29, at end insert—

'(2A) The arrangements must ensure that the authority—

(a) takes into account and has regard to the importance of street works in connecting, maintaining, repairing and replacing essential services such as gas, electricity, water and telecommunications; and

(b) in implementing the arrangements does not discriminate between its own works and street works.'.

Nigel Beard (Labour, Bexleyheath and Crayford)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 135, in

page 7, line 30, at end insert—

'(3A) The traffic manager shall ensure that prior to the commencement of any work on the highway other than emergency work, by, or on behalf of the local authority which appointed him, a reasonable period is agreed and publicised within which the work should be carried out.'.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

I must admit that I was tempted to speak in the debate on new clause 1, because the amendment is on similar territory. My hon. Friend the Minister's comments in response to that debate are helpful, particularly his points about guidance and how the local authorities and highway authorities will be subject to the same rules. The Minister can be assured that I shall not push the amendment to the vote. However, I have some questions that I hope he can answer. Will we ensure that local authorities pay due regard to the provision and maintenance of essential services other than just traffic. Will he also ensure that local authorities recognise the essential nature of utilities infrastructure works? Several utilities are concerned that network management will ignore those issues. Will he ensure that they are addressed in the guidance?

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I rise to speak to amendment No. 135 and to tease out some information from the Minister, because I believe that the terms of the amendment should always be best practice. Like the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, I live in Pimlico where there is a good local authority. When a parking bay is closed, prior notice is given to residents with a sign telling us that the provision will be withdrawn for the period specified on the notice. That should always be the case.

As I drive around Britain—I will not mention Leicester or Bexhill—I often find that I use a road for two or three days running, but on the fourth day a lane is closed with no prior notice that roadworks were to be carried out. In two such instances, the work was of a non-urgent nature and had been planned for several months. However, the planners had not seen fit to erect a traffic sign warning motorists that there would be a lane closure. Why is that the case? In the interests of good traffic management, motorists should be given advance warning that a route could be subject to disruption and delay. Motorists can then decide whether their journey is necessary, and if it is, they can use an alternative route. The amendment would ensure that best practice is always followed in future.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

At the risk of sounding repetitive, the issue is better dealt with in guidance. I agree with many of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East and the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire. We have no interest in preventing utility works that benefit individuals, businesses and the whole economy, and local

authorities will be well aware of the importance of utility services to their communities.

Duties relating to network management must be considered in the context of existing legislation. Utility companies already have a statutory right to carry out work to install or maintain apparatus. The duty placed on highway authorities in part 2 of the Bill will not interfere with that; the network management duty deals more with co-ordination and the way that works are carried out.

As I said in the little note given on guidance, good practice and advice on techniques and approaches to network management will cover, among other things, the co-ordination and direction of utility street works and authorities' own works. That broadly covers the time issues that the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire raised. When drafting secondary legislation and guidance to underpin the permit scheme, we will try to ensure that highway authorities take into account the disruption that may be caused by their works. We will also ensure that they do not discriminate unfairly against utility works.

A small tetchy point about amendment No. 135 is that it does not specify with whom the ''reasonable period'' is to be agreed. One must assume that the traffic manager will have to agree with himself the time frame for carrying out the work for the authority that employs him.

The wider point made by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire on amendment No. 135 is fair. It was also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East. I assure them that, as indicated in the little aide-mémoire on statutory instruments and guidance in relation to part 2, we will take account of the points in guidance.

I personally cannot foresee how the highway authority could reach a position in which it was co-ordinating and directing street works in general in its area and fulfilling its statutory network management duty in clause 16 without the system suggested by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire, which involves start and end dates, timing and getting on with works when they are ready to be done, rather than coning areas off, as we have all seen in the past. I cannot see how anything else could happen without contravening the network management duty.

With the assurance that those matters will be dealt with in guidance and as anticipated by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire and my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East, I ask my hon. Friend to withdraw the amendment.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The Government should accept amendment No. 135. If they have a quarrel with the words and think that there is ambiguity, I will happily withdraw it, with the purpose of bringing it back in better shape on Report, but unless or until the Minister makes such a commitment, I am minded to press the amendment to a vote.

The Government think that it is reasonable for the statutory undertaker to agree with the street works authority, in advance of street works, a reasonable

period in which the works should be carried out, with an end date. If that end date is not met, penalties flow. The Minister talks about when we have a dedicated traffic manager in the local authority, and Opposition Members have said that we think that that is a good idea. A traffic manager, with a responsibility for maintaining the network and the free flow of traffic, should be able—indeed, should be required—to agree a reasonable period for the execution of the work that it has in mind with the part of the local authority that is responsible for highway work. That period can then be publicised. Amendment No. 135 does not involve a sanction other than public odium, but at least there is some sanction.

You may be aware, Mr. Beard—I do not know which part of London you come into Westminster from—that there have been road works outside Lambeth North tube station for, I think, two years. When the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson)—he is not working today—is not in Plymouth, he is obviously waiting outside Lambeth North tube station uttering words that he probably would not wish others to hear about the incompetence of that authority in carrying out those works. For a long time, there was a sign saying that the works would be completed by, I think, April 2003, but as they still have not been completed, the sign has been taken away.

If ever there were an example of why the amendment is necessary, that is surely it. There are many other examples around London—at Vauxhall Cross and elsewhere—of works that seem to be taking an incredibly long time. That does not give the travelling public, pedestrians and so on the impression that highway authorities really have an interest in expediting works so that the highway can be restored to its previous state.

What is unreasonable about requiring a traffic manager, in cases in which there is no emergency, to agree a reasonable period for the execution of work and to publicise it? If the work is carried out at greater length than was agreed, there could be a public debate, including letters in the local paper and local councillors put on the rack for the local authority's incompetence. That is what we had in mind in amendment No. 135, and I am disappointed that it does not commend itself to the Minister.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

The example given by the hon. Member for Christchurch about traffic in north Lambeth was erroneous: I have seen the traffic there improve over the last few months. In view of the Minister's assurances, I shall seek leave to withdraw the amendment.

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

I am attracted to amendment No. 135, and should like to defend the drafting done by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire: I do not think that it is as bad as the Minister suggested. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch was generous in saying that it may need to be re-worked. It seems clear that when it says

''a reasonable period is agreed'',

that reasonable period would be agreed between the traffic manager, acting on behalf of the motoring public, who want less congestion, and those carrying out the works, who may be statutory undertakers or the highways authority works department.

My hon. Friend has in mind exactly the kind of creative tension within the local authority that I tried to introduce in another debate on another new clause, where the highways department responsible for maintaining and improving the network would have to negotiate with and answer to the traffic manager responsible for the proper use of the network as it stands. That is inherent in the amendment, and if my hon. Friend is happy for the Government to redraft it, so am I. I accept that what we want to get across today is merely the point behind the amendment. The Minister should understand that the amendment was thought through sensibly, and the agreement intended would have been made between the traffic manager for the motoring public and whoever it might be on the other side who wished to restrict the highway for works, which could include the works department of the highways authority. It is excellent that my hon. Friend wishes to press the matter further. Since the Minister said that he thought that the publication of a timetable for works was an excellent idea, why cannot we have that in the Bill?

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: No. 135, in

page 7, line 30, at end insert—

'(3A) The traffic manager shall ensure that prior to the commencement of any work on the highway other than emergency work, by, or on behalf of the local authority which appointed him, a reasonable period is agreed and publicised within which the work should be carried out.'.—[Mr. Chope.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 9.

Standing Committee A

Clause 17 - Arrangements for network management

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

I beg to move amendment No. 153, in

page 7, line 43, at end insert

'subject to guidance from the appropriate national authority.'.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 172, in

page 8, line 1, after 'the', insert 'efficiency and'.

No. 173, in

page 8, line 4, at end insert—

'(iii) the performance of their Traffic Manager.'.

No. 99, in

page 8, line 7, at end insert—

'(6A) No arrangements made in pursuance of the duties specified in this section shall take precedence over wider transport and community policy objectives set out in relevant Local Transport Plans and Regional Transport Strategies.'.

No. 154, in

clause 18, page 8, line 9, leave out 'may' and insert 'will'.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

A number of the Minister's earlier responses make amendment No. 154, in which I ask the Government to bring forward the guidance on a national basis, superfluous. He has already said that that will happen, although I was curious about why he did not use ''shall'' rather than ''may''. That is an arcane question.

I have a couple of questions about amendment No. 153. My purpose was to try to tease out of the Minister whether the guidance will ensure that there is consistency about which roads and classes of road will be subject to the permit scheme. I want to know how people who use the different schemes are talking to the network managers, how they will avoid 400 different schemes and 400 different sets of forms and how the people who will negotiate on road closure are not going to have to do one set of negotiations on one side of the boundary and another set on the other.

Will the Minister say how the guidance will cover those decisions so that there are no costly disputes. The focus must be on minimising congestion and disruption, rather than on discussions about the negotiations happening in different authorities, which will be costly for, particularly, the utilities, who will discuss that point with the local authorities.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I shall speak to amendments No. 172 and 173. Amendment No. 172 seeks to make clause 17, at the top of page 8, monitor efficiency as well as effectiveness. It is not just

a question of doing what the Bill says at any price. There are still some people in this country who believe that throwing money at a problem will improve things. I do not share that view, and perhaps the Minister agrees with me.

However, we need to have regard to the people who ultimately pay the bill, namely council tax payers, motorists and everybody else. It seems, therefore, that as well as monitoring the effectiveness of the scheme, it is crucial to ask whether we are getting value for money and whether a sensible amount is being paid, because there will always be competing priorities. While the issues are very important, they are not the only issues concerning road safety, transport generally or the country as a whole. They have to be seen in the context of competing priorities and in the sensible use of money that is allocated to such jobs. For that reason, I hope that the Minister will have some sympathy with the point being made, even if he does not like the wording of our amendment. I hope that he will be able to say that the Government accept that efficiency is important and that they will find a way of ensuring that not only effectiveness but a sense of efficiency will be provided for.

If amendments Nos. 172 and 173 were accepted, we would have the means to monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of, among other things, the performance of the authority's traffic manager. You were not here this morning, Miss Begg, when we had a minor discussion about giving traffic managers five-year contracts so that one could decide whether they had done a good job before reappointing them at the end of that period. The Government did not much like that, but I hope that they will at least accept that there is a need to monitor the boss's work very closely. I hope that I can persuade the Minister to include monitoring of the traffic manager's performance as a second best. Sometimes, the Opposition must settle for second best or even less than that. We did not win the argument this morning, and the Minister may not like the wording of the amendment, but I hope at least to persuade him to accept the principle of making some reference to monitoring the performance of a person who has been appointed to a designated job under the Bill.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I shall speak to amendment No. 99, which is in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Mr. Marsden). Clause 16, which we debated this morning, sets out the network management duty, and I accepted the Minister's doctrine as regards undue specificity. Clause 17, on the other hand, deals with the arrangements for network management, or, in other words, with the detail. It seems, therefore, that some specificity would be helpful rather than undue in this instance.

The amendment would make it clear that traffic management and the traffic manager should not take precedence over local transport plans and regional transport strategies. The Transport Act 2000 sets out important duties in that regard, and issues of traffic management and road use cannot be seen in isolation when an overall strategy is being considered at local or

regional level. For example, introducing or withdrawing a bus route would have a considerable impact on whether car use increased or decreased and, therefore, on the plans and strategies required for the use of that road. A similar argument would pertain where a new train service was introduced or an existing one was withdrawn.

We have rightly placed a pretty strong requirement on local and regional authorities to produce plans, and it would be rather illogical to allow a traffic manager simply to work in isolation, without having proper regard to those plans. It would therefore be appropriate to prevent the traffic manger from being able, in exercising their traffic management duties, to change a strategy that democratically elected bodies had arrived at locally or nationally. I ask the Government to consider how that could be done.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

As I said to Mr. Beard this morning, it will be a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Miss Begg. I hope that our proceedings will pick up pace so that no one slaps a fixed-penalty notice on the Committee for being tardy. Let me also say in passing that if I look vaguely timid, it is because my fellow Minister is not with us today. I also had the special in the Tea Room, which never bodes well for a restful afternoon, in Committee or otherwise.

Amendment No. 153 requires local traffic authorities to take account of guidance from the appropriate national authority when determining specific network management policies or objectives in relation to different roads. I understand what my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) is seeking to do with that amendment, but he will know from the paper that I tabled this morning that we are seeking to draw things as broadly as possible in terms of the network management duty, in consultation with local government. There will of course, in a general sense, be an attempt to clarify the interface at boundary level. We will deal with permits in regulations in part 3, when we address clause 36, where there may be some specific trans-border issues. I ask my hon. Friend to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment No. 172 would change subsection (5)(b) to require efficiency as well as effectiveness to be monitored in decision-making processes and the implementation of decisions. That would be otiose. It is not needed. Clause 16 already requires that a local traffic authority's objectives will need to be achieved

''so far as may be reasonably practicable having regard to their other obligations, policies and objectives'',

not least among which will be value for money and affordability: the traffic management duty being taken in the round with all the other resources of the local authority. That allows an authority to decide what will be prudent and proportionate when meeting the duty. That is in the Bill, and I do not think that adding ''efficiency'' will aid things.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

Before the Minister concludes his remarks on this group of amendments, will he tell the Committee his opinion

of amendment No. 154? This morning, he suggested en passant that guidance would be forthcoming. Therefore, I presume that he will agree to that amendment.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

As my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East, has said that amendment is not necessary, I was going to give an arcane answer to that arcane question. I may still do so in a slightly broader way without delaying the Committee.

Any local authority that does not properly consider the cost-benefit and financial implications of their actions will be subject to scrutiny under the regimes put in place as part of the wider modernisation agenda. That relates to the broad sense of what we mean by ''obligations, policies and objectives'' in clause 16.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I am afraid that I do not buy the Minister's argument about efficiency. The only reference to that in clause 16 is in subsection (2)(a), which mentions

''the more efficient use of their road network''.

There is no mention of financial efficiency.

The Minister relies on the well-worn assurance that there is a general obligation and refers the Committee to the local traffic authority's other ''obligations, policies and objectives'' but there is no suggestion that efficiency should be included in that. If the Minister wants us to accept that we do not need to use the word ''efficiency'' because of that general statement, why do we need ''effectiveness''? If efficiency is carried by clause 16, surely so is effectiveness. If the Minister wants to single one of those out, he means by implication that the other does not matter.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I am struck by a sense of déjà vu. I have not committed the entire Hansard account of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill to memory, but I think that we had many debates about effectiveness and efficiency meaning something different as a set phrase than when one or other is used on its own. The arguments were as obtuse then as they are now.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

At least I am consistent.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on that if nothing else.

The phrase ''obligations, policies and objectives'' is deliberately all embracing: it refers to the obligations, policies and objectives of the entire council, rather than just its highways authority. It does not mean only value for money or the well-worn assessment and appraisal methodologies for particular transport projects that will aid network management. It also means efficiency in terms of best value regime. The concept of efficiency is well rooted in that and in the subsequent best value performance indicators. I am not trying to be deliberately obstructive, but the hon. Gentleman will find that his concerns, which I share, are covered by the phrase, ''obligations, policies and objectives'' in the third line of clause 16, rather than by the word ''efficient'' later in the clause.

Amendment No. 99 is otiose, not least because the broad principles on the network management duty have already been outlined in the guidance. The first line refers to consideration of broad principles and therefore the issues that local authorities need to work through for their network, such as links to local transport and other plans. The local highway authority will not supersede local transport or community plans. The way in which the authority determines how best to achieve its statutory network management duty will be rooted in the local transport plan and other plans, not least the regional transport plan. The achievement of the network management duty must occur in the natural context set at a local level by the Government. It is not useful to suggest that work done in pursuance of the duty by local traffic authorities will take precedence. That will not help to improve the Bill.

I have been in charge of local transport plans for the past six months and have found that some larger maintenance projects take three or four years to come to fruition. There may be more pressing work in an area, but to achieve the network management duty a local authority may have to do work that appears to be contradictory to the long-term objectives of the plan. Ultimately, however, by remedying something in one part of its area, the authority will fulfil the local transport plan overall. Fulfilment of the network duty must be rooted in the local transport plan and other plans. It is not a case of one taking precedence over the other. However, the duty must be flexible enough to supersede the local transport plan if necessary .

On my giving my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East an arcane answer, amendment No. 154 would replace the word ''may'' with ''will'' in clause 18 . That may sound reasonable to those of us versed in English, but that is not the case according to the lawyers. I am told that ''shall'' or ''will'' can be interpreted as meaning that we must ensure that guidance is absolutely comprehensive in all respects of clauses 16 and 17. The guidance would have to encompass everything that anyone could want to know about the achievability of a network management duty.

The word ''may'' gives scope for omission. It would not require the advisory guidance to take account of every local circumstance for all 142 or so highway authorities. If we insert the word ''will'', an aspect that might be unique to Cumbria and have no relevance to the rest of the country would have to be included. That could be omitted and still provide cogent and prudent national advice. Scope for omission gives us flexibility in the tortured language that we legislate in, rather than the tortured use of the language that we talk in. In that context, I ask hon. Members to withdraw the amendment. All the serious points that have been raised are adequately covered elsewhere.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

On the basis of that obscure explanation of the English language, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 17 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 18 - Guidance to local traffic authorities

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I seek some information from the Minister. He referred to the language used by lawyers, and in this clause, the first sentence states that the

''appropriate national authority may publish guidance to local traffic authorities''.

What does he mean by the word ''publish''? Legally, something is published if it is given to a person other than the author. Does he envisage that the guidance will be published only for local traffic authorities, or will it reach a wider audience? I sincerely hope that it is intended for ''publish'' to be interpreted in the widest sense. Every local library and local newspaper should have a copy of the guidance. I should like to see to a copy when it is published, so I hope the Minister will agree to put one in the Library.

I say that because subsection (2) says:

''In performing those duties a local traffic authority shall''—

now we have the word ''shall''—

''have regard to any such guidance.''

In other words, if the local traffic authority does not follow the guidance, it is in breach of a duty. If the guidance is not widely published, how will the public know whether their traffic authority is in breach of the duty under which they are supposed to operate? I hope that the Minister will reassure the Committee that a copy of the guidance will be available to any member of the public on request. It would be unfair to expect the Minister to tell us everything that he thinks will be in the guidance today.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Why?

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I think it is fair that the Minister listens to arguments that are adduced as the Bill progresses through Parliament. That may cause him to put more into the guidance than he would do otherwise. I do not criticise him for not producing a copy of the guidance today. However, I hope that when he and his officials consider the framework of the guidance, he will be willing to take on board my suggestion that whenever roadworks involve the closure or narrowing of a carriageway, a complaints telephone number should be affixed to a temporary sign so that aggrieved motorists have a point of contact through which they can express their concerns.

Reference was made this morning to local authorities sometimes not being on the ball and causing more disruption than when the utilities companies dig up a road. It would be worth while for the motorist to know who to call with a valid complaint about what is happening. I hope that the guidance will require those who undertake work on the highway to display such a number.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I may have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's last point and it can be thrown in the pot for discussion. I make no apology for having no guidance here now, not least for the reasons that he suggested. It would have been presumptuous of me—nay, arrogant—to produce such guidance before the

Committee had even started. The last Government governed by diktat every now and then, but we seek to be as expansive, involving and inclusive as possible. We want the guidance to emerge with the Committee's collective wisdom. In addition, as I think I said before, we seek to hold the widest possible consultation with interested parties, such as utilities, local authorities and local government associations. We shall undertake to conduct that process as quickly as we can.

I have laid a paper before the Committee that describes roughly what will be in the guidance, but that by no means includes an exclusive list. We certainly intend to publish that information in the widest sense of the word, not the narrow sense. I am sure that it was a great honour for my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) to receive a copy. The information is due to be published. We seek a far wider dissemination of it in the consultative stage and, ultimately, in the final stage. Quite what the form will be beyond the normal practice of ensuring that highway authorities have the information, putting it on the website and whatever else, I do not know. However, I undertake to ensure that the information will be published in the widest sense. The document will be a public document.

The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) is right that the ''shall'' in subsection (2) is supposed to apply with force rather than be optional. Regardless of whether obtuse things prevail in Cumbria and not in Cornwall, all the relevant parties under the Bill will be obliged to satisfy us with their network management duty. They have no choice or flexibility other than in how they do that, but the fact that they must do it is provided for in the Bill. With those assurances, I recommend that the clause stand part of the Bill.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I am grateful to the Minister. He has provided me with the assurances that I sought.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 18 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 19 - Power to require information relating to network management

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I beg to move amendment No. 174, in

page 8, line 16, after 'period', insert 'not exceeding 3 months'.

I hope that the Committee will not end up watching dawn rise over the Thames before we reach the point the Minister wants us to get to.

Amendment No. 177 makes the same point as amendment No. 174, only it is expressed differently. I will speak to amendment No. 174, but I hope the Minister accepts that my comments also relate to amendment No. 177, because that will save me from repeating myself.

Both amendments seek to impose time limits. A report must be produced within a specified period not exceeding three months. I accept that I have plucked three months out of the air for the sake of debate, but it is a reasonable period and the principle is more

important than the figure. I do not care whether the Minister would prefer two or four months. Like the Minister, I have been in local government and suspect that he, too, may have found that work can take some time to be completed if there is no means of persuading people to pull their finger out. A three-month period would do just that.

Amendment No. 177 says the same thing about giving an authority time to make representations. If we say, ''You must have time to make representations,'' it could mean any length of time. I have had cases in which someone said that we could not proceed until someone else had commented, which meant that those cases lasted for ever and a day. There should be a cut-off point wherever the Bill says that something must happen. I may table amendments to that effect to other provisions. However, for the purposes of this debate, the cut-off point should be three months.

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

My hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) makes a good point, although his period of three months is rather generous.

Before I entered the House, I worked in the private sector. At all levels, until someone becomes the ultimate boss, one is asked for information in the normal course of the business that one is conducting. If at any stage I had said to my bosses that I would deliver the information in three months, I would have been out of the door or pensioned off to a very early retirement because they would have decided that I was not up to it. If I had offered to send them the information in three weeks, I would also have been out of the door. If information is required and it is connected with, and collected for, the purpose of the authority or the business, it should be made available more rapidly.

I understand that the public sector works to different time scales compared with the private sector. It can take six months to get enough of the 550,000 civil servants to answer a letter that a Member of Parliament has sent to a Minister or a Department. None of us find that satisfactory. I always say to my constituents that they will get an answer from me by return because it is just my secretary and I, but that when we need an answer from the Government it takes six months because there are 550,000 people helping to give it.

We must move on from that culture. One month would be a more sensible time frame. It is still three or four times as long as it would take anybody in the private sector to produce information for their boss or higher authority. It is, however, right that my hon. Friend should ask the Minister to initiate better habits in the public sector in the timely provision of needed information, as it has to collect that information anyway.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

While we are playing at macho toy soldiers in the battle between public and private, I assure the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and the hon. Member for Spelthorne that I will be harsher than the two of them put together. The Bill does not specify an arbitrary three

months, two months or whatever the right hon. Gentleman suggested, but clearly says, ''within a specified period.'' That means that if the Secretary of State or the national authority deems that the information is required in a week, the period will be a week. If the information is required in two or three months because the work is substantial, the period will be two or three months. What he and the hon. Gentleman are trying to achieve is already in the Bill, which is far harsher than either of them would have it.

I am very pleased that the hon. Member for Spelthorne recognised that he was being utterly arbitrary in plucking the figure of three months from the sky. That is not good enough. If the relevant national authority requires information, and if there is a good reason why it is required—it will be not simply to employ someone at a local level, but the pursuance of the local authority achieving its national statutory duty as outlined—if it takes two days, four days, two weeks or two months to provide that information, that is what will the specified time will be. I will cling to that flexibility with every breath in my body, because it is utterly important to ensure that the information flow is right for the benefit of the centre and the local level, as well as for the achievement of the national duty. In that context, the Bill is twice as hard and firm as the right hon. Gentleman or the hon. Gentleman urge, so I ask them to withdraw the amendment.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

That was not a particularly good lesson. The trouble is that I cannot help warming to the Minister, especially when he is wrong, as he is now. My amendment does not say that information must be produced within three months. It says everything that the Minister says, plus a little more. All it says is that the specified period, which the Minister warmed to, should not exceed three months. He is absolutely right that that period might be a day.

The Bill says that the person concerned can specify how long things will take and can make a judgment about whether providing the information is simply a matter of looking something up in a file or doing a little research. In effect, my amendment says that however much the word ''specified'' is used, under no circumstances can the period extend beyond three months.

The Minister's enthusiastic response to ''specified'' did not state a period beyond two months, so he appears to accept that everything could be done within three months, otherwise he would have said that it might take six. He did not, however, so he seems to accept that three months is a long stop. In the circumstances, because he said how important it is to be quick, I am not prepared to withdraw my amendment.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 7.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I beg to move amendment No. 175, in

page 8, line 28, leave out subsection (4).

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 179, in

clause 20, page 9, line 6, leave out subsection (5).

No. 182, in

clause 21, page 10, line 16, leave out subsection (10).

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

The amendments all raise the same point. One of the weird things about this place is that, to trigger any explanation or debate, we have to try to delete something. The amendments are designed purely to get the Minister to say a little more about why the Mayor of London has to have things sent to him. I have nothing against the Mayor of London—well, I have, but if I went down that route, you would rule me out of order, Miss Begg, because it is not wholly to do with the Bill. Nevertheless, it would be helpful if the Minister explained in more detail why the Mayor has to be involved, as well as the London boroughs. The amendments are merely a means of launching the debate.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I was going to be churlish and call these the ''Oh dear, Norris will never be Mayor'' amendments, on the basis that the Conservatives will never win the mayoral election and therefore want to remove any reference to the Mayor. However, I understand and appreciate the manner in which the hon. Member for Spelthorne made his case.

Transport for London is responsible for 5 per cent. of the roads across the boroughs, but 30 per cent. of the traffic. TFL has told me that it fully supports the network management duty and recognises that there is a two-way flow not only between TFL and the Government, but between TFL and the boroughs. There is already a co-ordination and liaison role for TFL, but if we are imposing a specific duty in that regard, it is incumbent on us to give TFL the scope to receive the information that it may need subsequently to carry out that co-ordination. That is all that clauses 19, 20 and 21 are designed to do.

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

If this clause remains unamended, will it allow the Government to find out from the Mayor in advance whether, for example, he wanted to take out all the lumps, bumps and humps but put in speed cameras on every street? We hear that that is his policy. Does the Minister currently have the power to find out whether that is true, and will he have the power under this legislation?

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

That relates to the relationship between TFL and central Government, rather than that between TFL and the boroughs, which is what many of these clauses are about. As I understand it, the Government have the ability to be informed regularly by TFL about whatever it is doing in the more general sense. I see TFL in three or four different capacities on a monthly basis. That includes a specific group on London's roads and street works. With regard to the tube, there are also regular meetings with the Mayor and with Bob Kiley, so there is discussion at the centre.

Much of this debate is about the interplay between TFL, the boroughs and what notification or otherwise comes back to us at the centre. Matters have to be referred to the Mayor and TFL as well. It is essential to underpin that co-ordination and liaison by building on the strategic role in respect of traffic that the Mayor and TFL already have. It is therefore appropriate and not terribly burdensome that there is the flow of information alluded to in clauses 19, 20 and 21.

If the amendments were accepted, there would be a significant gap in respect of notification and an inability for the boroughs, TFL and the centre to intermesh in quite the way envisaged in the Bill at national, regional strategic and local level. For those reasons, I urge the hon. Member for Spelthorne to withdraw amendment No. 175 and not to press amendments Nos. 179 and 182.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

In future, when people want to see what was the thinking behind the legislation, it will be helpful to have that explanation in the Hansard record. I am grateful to the Minister for putting that information in the public domain and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 19 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 20 - Intervention notices

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I beg to move amendment No. 176, in

page 8, line 32, leave out 'considers' and insert

'has reasonable grounds to believe'.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 177, in

page 8, line 39, after 'period', insert 'not exceeding three months'.

No. 178, in

page 9, line 5, after 'authority', insert 'reasonably'.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

Should I call Mr. Chope?

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

We try to parcel out the responsibility.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

I should look to see who wants to speak.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

Whether you were in the Chair or not, Miss Begg, I do not know, but it has been pointed out that the official Opposition team contains three very eminent people and a Whip. You will get the idea of what we are doing.

Turning to amendments Nos. 176 and 178, the Minister will have a sense of déjà vu because these are things that I regularly talk about. Clause 20(1) reads:

''If the appropriate national authority considers that a local traffic authority may be failing properly to perform any of their duties'',

it can do various things. I do not like the idea that an ''appropriate national authority'', late on a Thursday or a Friday afternoon, can, on a whim, decide that it will do something. It should have good reason to do it.

I should prefer the provision to include the wording ''reasonable grounds to believe'', rather than simply ''considers''. That authority could ''consider'' for all sorts of reasons, be they bad or not, or no reason at all. I have used that argument regularly, and I have heard the Minister's answer regularly. He did not persuade me last time, and I predict that he is unlikely to do so now.

Amendment No. 176 makes that point, and amendment No. 178 to clause 20(4) would mean that any national authority ''reasonably considers'' information specified in the notice, rather than just ''considers''. Otherwise, I envisage a situation in which someone simply says something—on a fishing expedition for information that they fancy obtaining—that is neither sensible nor reasonable. Under the amendments, such a statement would have to be reasonably connected with the purpose of the clause. The other amendment in the group is No. 177, to which I spoke earlier.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

As the hon. Gentleman suggests, I shall leave amendment No. 177 to one side. In the five minutes since we last discussed it, we have not convinced each other, and we are unlikely to do so now. On amendments Nos. 176 and 178, I would agree with him, were it not for clause 18. We shall be issuing guidance on the network duty and the criteria for intervention, which will outline completely what is and is not worthy of consideration by the authorities. It will not be a case of someone, late on a Thursday night, receiving a bad phone call from another person and thinking, ''I know, we'll go and intervene in Dorset, just to get my own back and to make me feel better.''

Clear guidance has been set down on what the national authorities can appropriately consider the local traffic authority to be failing properly to perform. I hope to show, when the guidance emerges and we discuss later clauses, that we see intervention as a last resort. We envisage a series of discussions, and perhaps mentoring by other highway authorities that are in a far better position to recapture the failing nature of the highway authority, as well as a series of other measures, some in guidance and some that will be agreed by local government.

Everything possible will have been done before intervention is considered against guidance criteria. The word ''reasonably'' would be otiose because, in law at least, all public authorities act reasonably, although our experiences may beg to differ. If they do not, scope and redress are laid out clearly in broader administration and case law. We do not need ''reasonable'', but the reasonability and the detailed criteria against which to measure the success or failure of the network management duty will be clearly laid out in guidance. It will not be as arbitrary as the hon. Gentleman suggests, although I fully understand his reasons.

Of themselves and on their own, and with nothing standing behind them, I might have a degree of sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman says about those amendments and how he wants to change the nature of the provisions. However, with the guidance and the regulations outlined in the document that I

gave to the Committee this morning, as well as what we think will be the network management duty prior to our discussion with all interested parties and the criteria for intervention all underpinning the clause, I suggest that the language offered by the hon. Gentleman is unnecessary. I ask him to withdraw the amendment. As for amendment No. 177, we have been there, done that—I just say ''ditto''.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I have the wonderful feeling, because of what the Minister said, that I am within an inch of winning the argument. If I understood correctly, he said that if it were not for clause 18, he would have some sympathy for the amendment. I take that to mean that he would hold his nose while agreeing with me. That suggests to me that if there were a reference to clause 18, he would be right, and I would agree with him. However, it seems that what I suggest for clause 20—that the appropriate national authority acts if it has ''reasonable grounds to believe''—is a way of doing things that the Minister does not like.

I think that the Minister said that the appropriate wording would be ''if the appropriate national authority, having regard to the guidance contained in clause 18, considers''. I think that that is what he said, but he added that that was unnecessary because of clause 18. We need a reference to clause 18, because reference is made to clauses 16 and 17. That is why I feel so close, and I do not want to spoil it.

In the circumstances, I am prepared to accept the Minister's choice of words in order to establish the point on which he and I agree. I shall be happy to withdraw, in the hope—perhaps he will confirm it—that he will come back with an amendment on Report to pick up on the point about which we both agree.

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

I am prompted to rise because I think that my hon. Friend is on to an even more important point than I realised at the beginning of this extraordinarily interesting debate, and we need to see it through.

There could occasionally be political disagreement between the national and local authorities—it has been known in this wicked world—and we need to protect both sides from politics. We need to legislate for all the nation in a non-partisan spirit, so that the legislation works. That means that the national authority should be able to intervene only for the good reasons set out in the legislation. It should not be able to intervene on any other basis, such as, for example, because it disagreed with the mix of objectives and policies that a particular local authority was following, even though they were entirely reasonable in relation to the electoral balance of that area.

If anything, my hon. Friend has underdone his case with the words that he has chosen. However, the Minister should think again, because the Bill offers no protection at the moment, and we need to protect duly elected councils from politically motivated intervention by the national authority, which I am sure is not the intention.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I understand that point; again, however, it is not necessary. We may be close, but I

am going disappoint the hon. Gentleman: with the best will in the world, I shall not come back with anything on Report. Clause 20 clearly refers to the power to intervene if a local traffic authority fails properly to perform any of its duties under sections 16 and 17. Those two clauses are all about the duty and the arrangements for network management.

Clause 18(1) states:

''The appropriate national authority may publish guidance to local traffic authorities about the techniques of network management or any other matter relating to the performance of the duties imposed by sections 16 and 17.''

The reference to clauses 16 and 17 in clauses 18 and 20 means that the thing is double locked, so we do not need to refer to clause 18 in clause 20. It is there by virtue of the reference to the principal clauses 16 and 17. Without my going into the issue of public administration and the capricious application of national laws, there are any number of ways to achieve the balance, or, as some would have it, the wicked ways, that are well beyond the scope of this Bill and this Committee in terms of a difference between the national and local perspectives, the national guidance and the clause being imposed, on a local authority of a different hue. During the lifetime of this Government—I cannot remember much about the last Government, who used to abolish things without intervening on them—I do not think that any scrutiny of how we have intervened, regardless of the success or otherwise, has been marred by some skewed partisan choice. I suspect that the record will show that the Labour Government has imposed and intervened on Labour local authorities at least as much as on Liberal Democrat or Conservative authorities.

With the triple lock between the reference to clauses 16 and 17 and their backing, the points that the hon. Gentleman made are clearly covered, for the reasons I outlined earlier. That is I why I ask him to withdraw his amendment and not to hold his breath waiting for me to come back with something on Report, because he will be bluer than he is now if he holds his breath too long—blue in the political sense.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I am impressed by that, although it was not quite as impressive as the praise from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham, which is praise indeed. I subscribe to the Texas principle of politics, particularly when it comes to tabling amendments, which is that if enough holes are drilled in Texas, oil comes out of one of them. Every so often I come up with a gem, and my right hon. Friend has identified one this afternoon, for which I am grateful.

I do not intend to hold my breath. The Minister has realised that he has not persuaded me. It is always easy for an incoming Conservative Government—as we will be—to abolish things, because the current Government sets up so many silly things with so many targets to abolish. We look forward to doing that. Nevertheless, the Minister has told me what I have to do between now and Report stage. If he is not going to come forward with the words he prefers, I will. In order that I may go away and draft something different, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I should like to ask the Minister a question. This is the first in a series of clauses dealing with the enforcement of network management duties. Does he envisage those duties giving rise to third party rights to enforce or seek remedies for their breach? Does he think that this duty will stand alongside the duties under the Highways Act 1980, which are often the subject of civil action by those who have suffered as a result of a failure by local authorities to maintain the highway?

I wanted to debate the clause because I want to put on the record our strong opposition to this draconian and unnecessary part of the Bill, which introduces a long-winded process for enforcing network management duties. The Minister has more or less indicated that he intends never to use the powers that we are going to give him and which we will debate at further length on subsequent clauses. If he thinks that he has persuaded us—I do not think he has—he has certainly not persuaded the all-party Local Government Association, which is unanimous in saying that the proposed intervention powers in clauses 20 to 31 could have serious implications for the independence and local accountability of local traffic authorities. The LGA is concerned that those proposals contradict the Government's previously stated commitment to facilitate local freedoms and flexibilities for local government, and it would like the clauses to be withdrawn. I hope that the Minister will, on reflection and in due course, seek to withdraw them, because at the moment they create an unnecessary atmosphere of distrust, when we should be promoting an atmosphere of trust between the Government, Parliament as the legislature, and those who have important responsibilities for keeping our road network working.

The Local Government Association says that it has agreed a protocol with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on how central Government interventions in council activities should work. Apparently, the Minister believes that the proposed intervention powers would meet the spirit of that protocol, but that is certainly not the LGA's view. It says, and I agree, that the intervention powers are unnecessary and will do a lot of damage to what is otherwise a reasonable Bill in many respects.

This part of the Bill is a throwback to the tsar system that the Government are so beloved of. The traffic director will apparently have two different modes: a monitoring and intervening mode and a direct control mode. I am delighted to see a Chief Whip—

Gillian Merron (Labour, Lincoln)

Not Chief!

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

A Whip, who knows a lot about direct control and, who I am sure, will be impressed by the thorough examination being given.

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

Perhaps my hon. Friend should remember that the current Chief Whip won this week, but the position could be little different on Report. My hon. Friend may be a few weeks early.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

My right hon. Friend is quite right. I was anticipating what has not yet happened. That reminds me of what happened under the community charge legislation when the most difficult time for the then Government was not Second Reading but Report, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend is right to remind the Government Whip of that.

We are discussing the creation of a new traffic tsar, which prompts me to ask the Minister what happened to the last transport tsar, Lord Birt? His name is in our minds today as a former director-general of the BBC—perhaps he will be brought back a chairman of the BBC. Does he still have a job as transport tsar, and where will he fit in? Will he be superior or subservient to the traffic director, or will he be the same person?

This part of the Bill introduces serious intervention powers for the Government. Having had the privilege of being a Minister dealing with local authorities, I do not think that it has ever proved sensible for Government to try to intervene directly in the responsibilities of local authorities. Even during the days of Hatton in Liverpool and Bookbinder in Derbyshire, Conservative Governments held back from using such powers as they had to intervene directly. The caution that we exercised was sensible, and I certainly believe that the proposals in the Bill will never be used and are therefore redundant.

Why does the Minister believes that the new powers are necessary when section 59 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 already provides a power of intervention by the national authority with respect to any serious failure to co-ordinate street works. I understand that that power has never been used. Does he envisage that the powers in clauses 20 to 31 will similarly never be used, although they will take up quite a lot of debating time in this House and in the other place.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

The point made about the intervention powers was well made, and I have serious reservations about whether the Government need to reserve to themselves that level of powers.

I have a slightly different approach, which I hope we will discuss when we come to the amendments on the next clause, and I shall reserve my arguments until then, but I would certainly support the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) if he pressed his amendment to a vote.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I said from a sedentary position, for which I apologise, that if the hon. Member for Christchurch thought that Third Reading was the difficult part of the poll tax legislation—

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Report stage.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I meant Report stage. I merely said that the 1997 election, rather than Report stage, was its final denouement.

On the hon. Gentleman's specific questions, the answer to the first one, if he can remember it, is no. It was about third parties and specifically the relationship between a local authority and the national authority. There is no locus at all for third party rights in that relationship and that is not envisaged.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the Highways Act 1980, but specific actions brought by individuals about the specific state of specific sites in terms of the highways network are totally outside the scope of this part of the Bill.

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

How does the clause, with its very strong powers for central intervention and control, square with the Government's recently stated policy of more devolution, more power and more independence for local authorities?

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

As that was the only matter of substance raised by the hon. Member for Christchurch, I was about to come to it.

The general duty of street authorities to co-ordinate works in section 59 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 specifically concerns the execution of work of all kinds in the streets for which an authority is responsible. It does not concern the far wider network management duty that we have put in the Bill, which goes far beyond that specific duty concerning street works. It is not a replication of section 59 of the 1991 Act, as the hon. Gentleman suggested. It includes street works, but goes way beyond that in terms of traffic flow and overall management.

The intervention process is certainly within the context of the protocol suggested by the Local Government Association and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. We have stated clearly that when it comes to the network management duty and all the regulations and guidance associated with the whole of part 2, on which I produced a little note, the LGA will be at the table and discussing fully not only the guidance alluded to in clause 18 on definitions and measurement of the duty, but also the criteria for making intervention orders in clause 27. The LGA will be sitting down with us, as will other parties, to determine what the criteria will be for intervention.

As I said this morning, this is not about a Stalinist sledgehammer to crack a nut in Christchurch or anywhere else. It is simply about getting to the stage where intervention powers can be utilised, as a last resort, but in the spirit of the protocol. As I said barely half an hour ago, subsequent discussions with the LGA in terms of guidance and regulations, will be a real participative process. I freely admit that we want to get to the stage where the power is never used. That does not mean that it is redundant. There may well be recalcitrant local authorities who, no matter what is done in invoking LGA colleagues to mentor them, or having officials from the Department work closely and informally with them, or whatever, resist getting to the stage at which the network management duty is fulfilled, and there would, ultimately, have to be intervention. I can cheerfully say—this is not a contradictory statement—that, as a Minister, I want the clause and the powers to be in the Bill, but I hope

that they are never used. I would consider its use to be a failure on our part as well as on that of the local authority.

That sort of grown-up, mature relationship between central and local government is rapidly being restored by the Government, and that is long, long overdue. I have never heard such a travesty as the notion that somehow all was milk and honey under the Conservative Government and that we are now the vicious slayers of local government. Rather than intervene if they did not like something, they abolished it. That is slightly more draconian than what we are suggesting. There will be input at every stage in terms of the LGA.

I do not know where the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) got the notion of a traffic tsar. A traffic director put in, in the last instance, will be very localised and will deal with localised problems in a highway authority area. It is a good line to suggest that that is a tsar or, if that is too politically incorrect for him, a tsarina, but that is not the case. The appointment of a traffic director is part and parcel of that intervention. The director will work with the local authority to turn round whatever difficulties it has with the network management duty and get out as quickly as possible. This is not the hoary old method of the Audit Commission sending a whole team in to take over a local authority, as happened back in the 1970s and 1980s. The process is participatory, with an end game to the intervention, if it proves necessary.

I hope, in all seriousness, that that will not be necessary. It is well within our policy of flexibility, fairness and working with, rather than doing things to, local government. I urge my hon. Friends to support the clause.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 4.

Clause 21 - Intervention orders

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I beg to move amendment No. 103, in

page 9, line 13, at end insert—

'(1A) An intervention order must specify the failures of the local traffic authority properly to perform a duty under sections 16 and 17 and require the authority to comply with that duty within the stated period of time.

(1B) An intervention order may make provision for or in connection with the replacement of the local traffic authority's traffic manager appointed under section 17(2)'.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 102, in

page 9, line 14, leave out subsections (2) to (9).

Amendment No. 104, in

page 9, line 22, leave out 'and'.

Amendment No. 105, in

page 9, line 24, at end insert—

'(da) give particulars of the expected period for which the traffic officer will be appointed

(db) set out details of the process by which the intervention order will be removed'.

Amendment No. 180, in

page 9, line 38, at end insert—

'(5A) All reports produced in furtherance of subsection (5) above must be published in full within 3 months.'.

Amendment No. 181, in

page 9, line 44, at end insert

'provided that they do not exceed the powers capable of being conferred on a traffic manager under the provisions of this Act.'.

New clause 19—Report to parliament—

'The Secretary of State shall present a report on an annual basis to Parliament on the number and nature of intervention notices and orders issued in the previous year and their effects on local traffic authority performance with specific references to improvements in road safety.'.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

The amendments follow directly from the debate that we have just had. I confess that if amendments Nos. 103 and 102 were accepted as they stand, they would not make any sense because they require amendment No. 101, which was not selected, to make them work. However, with your leave, Miss Begg, I will put forward the argument none the less.

The purpose of the amendments is to look at the role of the traffic director, to accept that there may be times when intervention is appropriate and necessary, to look beyond the point at which a power is reserved to make an intervention, and to ask why the intervention must be made in the particular way prescribed in the Bill. There is no challenge to the right to intervene to correct and remedy what is not happening or what may be going wrong.

It seems to me that there are only two circumstances in which the Government may wish to intervene. One is when a local authority has failed in its duty to appoint a traffic manager. The other is when a traffic manager has been appointed but is failing to deliver. There is a simple remedy for that which does not require the appointment of a traffic director or any other of the remedies in the Bill. In the case of no traffic manager being appointed, if the Government took to themselves the power to make such an appointment, that would correct the problem.

If a traffic manager is failing, surely it is not necessary to impose above him another layer of authority that, even if it were not a whole team, would require support, offices and all the things that go with a growing bureaucracy. The objective could be achieved by the removal of the offending individual, and his replacement with a traffic manager acceptable to the Government. Clauses 22 to 30 provide an extremely complex, very costly, highly bureaucratic

remedy, when a simple solution would be to permit the Government to intervene either by appointing a traffic manager where none exists or replacing an existing traffic manager who is deemed to have failed.

It is interesting that the powers given to the traffic director, who has been referred to as a tsar or tsarina, are considerably greater than those granted to the traffic manager. If the traffic manager can successfully do the job with the powers that we have dealt with so far, why does the traffic director need all sorts of supplementary powers to enable him to ensure that the traffic manager's job is done successfully? That seems like a vast sledgehammer to crack a pretty small and simple nut.

Finally, I come to finance. The powers, the support team and all the things that it is deemed necessary for the traffic director to undertake have to be funded. Where will the funding come from? The Government have decided that it will be from the local authority. The local authority, therefore, not only has to pay the traffic manager that it already has, and to support the network required for that job, but to pay for a second, complete set of bureaucracy. That is wholly inappropriate.

Were the Government to adopt my very simple remedy, which would do everything that they seek to achieve in terms of intervention, we could delete clauses 22 to 30, as they would have no relevance. If they could accept that approach, they would dramatically shorten our time in Committee. I ask the Minister why we need the complicated business of a traffic director to solve the essentially simple problem of needing either to remedy the fact that there is no traffic manager or to replace a failing one with an individual who can do the job and is approved by the Minister and his colleagues?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I do not wish to repeat what the hon. Gentleman has said. He made constructive and sensible suggestions, and I commend them to the Minister and hope that he will respond positively.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

I shall speak to new clause 19, which concerns one of my hobby-horse subjects, which is how this place works. We are reasonably good at the process of putting Bills through Parliament, and we are getting better at pre-legislative scrutiny. However, what is often missing is post-implementation scrutiny. One of my reasons for tabling the amendment is that we ought to consider, as a matter of course, how we review whether Bills work. I appreciate that this is an anorak subject; I have discussed it with the Minister in the Tea Room before now. However, it is important to get right the balance between the Executive and Parliament.

The aim of the new clause is to ensure that Parliament has an opportunity to scrutinise whether intervention orders are working and, consequentially, to consider whether road safety has been improved. If the Minister will not accept the new clause—I suspect that he will give us reasonable arguments why he will not—will he consider making such information available as a matter of course under his Department's publication schemes, which are now

under review in the context of freedom of information legislation?

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I shall speak briefly to amendments Nos. 180 and 181. The Minister might be able to help by saying that neither is necessary, but I have a view on subsection (5)(b), which states:

''The general powers which may be conferred on the traffic director are powers authorising him . . . to report on any matter''.

That means that any report made by somebody who is appointed to overrule other people needs to be made public so that the public can see that the power taken to appoint such a person to wield such powers is being used sensibly. Perhaps the Minister can persuade me that amendment No. 180 is not necessary by saying that, in this case, to report on any matter means that the report is public.

Amendment No. 181—hobby-horses have been ridden round this Committee Room, and I shall ride another one for a moment—concerns subsection (7)(b):

''An order may . . . confer ancillary powers on the traffic director''.

I hope that the Minister can assure us that specifying ancillary powers rules out the possibility of giving powers that go beyond the powers in the Bill—it is not a means of extending the provisions by diktat. The amendment—probably clumsily, because I am neither a parliamentary draftsman nor a lawyer—says that if there are to be powers to confer ancillary powers on the traffic director, they should be conferred only if they do not exceed the powers capable of being conferred on the traffic manager within the terms of the legislation. That is what I am driving at, and it is possible that the Minister can put me out of my misery.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I am not sure that I can put the hon. Gentleman out of his general misery, but I shall try in this specific case. Many of the points that have been made are reasonable. I do not agree with them but, as I have said, the measures need to be seen in the context of there being a stepped approach to intervention. We are still stuck in the mode of considering either everything going on tickety-boo locally or intervention, with nothing in between.

Amendments Nos. 103 and 102 aim to change the provisions for structured and proportionate intervention. As the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) was honest enough to say, they are complemented by amendment No. 101 and others that would go much further in containing powers, even to the extent of deleting references to the traffic directors. Although those were not selected—the hon. Gentleman is playing with half a hand rather than a full one—I get the import of what he suggests.

Amendment No. 103 would create a requirement that an intervention order must give an authority time to improve performance in specified areas and makes provision for the authority's traffic manager to be replaced. As I have indicated already, that is precisely what we shall say in guidance. There is a series of steps

to go through before the last notion of intervention. Even when an intervention order is issued, that will be done in the context of what needs to be done to prevent the appointment of a traffic director. This is not about somebody in the Department for Transport waking up and thinking, ''We have a host of bureaucrats who are twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do, so let us make them traffic directors who can take over the functions of a range of authorities.'' The phased element will be in the guidance, and all local authorities will have to refer to it when considering how they will go about implementation.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

For the purposes of the argument that I put forward, I am quite happy to accept that intervention is necessary, and, however imperfectly my amendments were drafted, the intention was not to suggest that it should not take place. The need for intervention is accepted. Everything that the Minister says after that—for instance, about a gradual approach—can therefore be accepted. Indeed, everything can be accepted up to the point of the issuing of the intervention order. My question is, why does the remedy have to be putting in a traffic director, rather than simply putting in a traffic manager, if there is not one already there, or replacing a failing traffic manager with an approved one?

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

Principally because the way in which we have designed the Bill means that the traffic manager belongs to and is part of the local authority. The traffic director would be someone from outside imposed on the authority as a matter of last resort. We are talking about not two elements of the same thing, but distinct roles involving different relationships.

As astute members of the Committee will have noticed, there are no powers afforded to traffic managers under the Bill. Amendment No. 181 therefore makes no sense because it would insert the phrase

''provided that they do not exceed the powers capable of being conferred on a traffic manager under the provisions of this Act.''

Perhaps the amendment is terribly cunning and the hon. Member for Spelthorne has noticed that there are no powers conferred on a traffic manager. We simply want a designated officer at the local authority to perform the duty. In the spirit of local devolution, we leave the powers, and the question of how things are to be achieved, to local authorities.

The hon. Gentleman may have spotted that and his intention may be to ensure that traffic directors have the same powers as traffic managers—in other words, none. It is possible that this is a subtle and clever wrecking amendment, but I am not sure about that. I take the point about the balance between the traffic manager and the traffic director, but amendment No. 181 would not achieve anything.

We have had arguments before about reporting within three months or otherwise. The report is about responding to what is in the intervention order and about how the recovery plan, or action plan—whatever people want to call it—in the order is to be achieved. Many of the points made by the hon.

Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross will be laid out in the order.

The intervention order will be specific to the local authority that is failing. If I have not made that clear, I apologise. As part of the intervention process, the order will bring with it a series of tasks that need to be carried out to enable the authority to get back on the road to achieving its statutory duty. It will be full of the particulars necessary to achieve that end.

I do not want to dwell unduly on the specifics, but the Bill mentions the ''particulars'', ''objectives'' and ''general powers'' necessary to get the authority into a position of recovery. Together with the guidance, the provisions are intended to cover everything that the hon. Gentleman suggests, including the expected period within which the traffic officer will be appointed and the details of the process by which the intervention order will be removed. I am talking about amendments Nos. 104 and 105. The order will be specific to the authority and will feature all the elements in question, including the recovery plan and the exit route for when the authority is on the road to success.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I want to take the Minister back to amendment No. 180. He dealt with the question of three months. We have had that debate before, and I do not want to have it again, but he did not make his views clear on my point about publishing the report and putting it in the public domain—whether that happens within three months. That is the other part of amendment No. 180. I would be interested to hear his views on publishing the reports.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

My view is that, when possible, the reports should be published and put in the public domain. I cannot give an absolute assurance that that will happen because there may be reasons why it cannot. I am speculating now, but a local authority could be failing partly because of an issue of financial probity involving two or three large projects. Recovery by a traffic director or an intervention order could involve a host of things, such as reports relating to specific commercial information on those projects. That is pure speculation, but there could be areas in which either commercial sensitivity or confidentiality should prevail for those reasons. I cannot give a universal commitment to the reports all being in the public domain, but I start from the premise that they should be unless there is a good reason for them not to be, as the hon. Gentleman suggests.

I think that I have broadly covered most of the points on the amendments. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East will not be surprised that I am not minded to accept the ''anorak point''—his words, not mine—on new clause 19. Although I agree generally about matters being reported to Parliament, to do so in this case would be a replication.

I do not want to pre-empt discussions with local government and others on guidance and regulations, but it might be appropriate to report local interventions in performance reviews. We will have a

local transport plan, which will be a five-year plan with annual performance reviews, involving every highway authority. Given the number of local authorities, there might be 40 or 50 interventions in a terrible year, although I would hope not, as there should be no interventions if we are doing our job properly.

A cumulative report to Parliament of 40 or 50 reports individual to each highway authority would not be very informative. The annual performance reviews, which are public documents, might be the appropriate place for each highway authority to report whether there have been any interventions. That would be a more appropriate vehicle than that suggested in the ''anorak point'' made by my hon. Friend.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The Minister refers to the prospect of using the annual performance review in the local transport plan as a performance indicator. Will it definitely be one of the performance indicators?

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again if he does not listen. I clearly made that point. I added the caveat that, without pre-empting any subsequent discussions with local government or other authorities in terms of performance indicators or the network management duty, the annual performance review might be an appropriate model. It is certainly more appropriate than an annual review to Parliament of what is necessarily a locally focused intervention order. Therefore, it is not possible to give that guarantee.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I understand the Minister, but I am unconvinced by his argument. Let me check that I have understood correctly. He argues that clause 16 puts a duty on a local traffic authority to manage its road network. Clause 17(2), which refers to the arrangements, states that it must have a traffic manager who may or may not be employed by the local authority, according to what we have already agreed.

The traffic director will therefore be imposed on the local authority and will take with him a whole panoply of power. That situation will be worse than I had imagined: it will interfere further with local authorities, and it cuts against the grain of the fact that we elect local authorities and, if they fail, our remedy is to vote them out. Imperfect though local authorities are, and in light of the Minister's answer, I am minded to ask the Committee for its opinion.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 6.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I hope that the Committee will reject the clause. As became apparent in our debate on the amendments, this is a centralising, bureaucratic measure, which has not been properly thought through. We had an indication earlier that the Government would use the intervention power only in extreme circumstances, but the Minister said in a throwaway line that there could be 40 or 50 interventions a year, adding that that was why it would not be appropriate to make an annual report to Parliament.

The Minister talked about 40 or 50 interventions a year, yet he was rather impatient with us for asking about performance indicators. Surely, Parliament's role is to consider whether it would be appropriate and reasonable for the Government to take such enormous powers, and one way of testing that proposition is to examine how robust performance indicators would be. There are already performance indicators and annual performance reviews for local transport plans, so one would have expected the Minister to be able to tell us whether he would regard them as a key indicator of whether a local authority was performing its network management duties. However, he cannot even tell us that and simply says that he would like to discuss the matter privately outside Parliament. That is a very unsatisfactory way of proceeding, because it is for Parliament to decide whether the Government should have the powers that are before us, and it is for the Government to persuade Parliament that they should. However, they have not persuaded me that they need those powers, which are totally over the top.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 4.

Clause 22 - Appointment of traffic director: supplementary

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I beg to move amendment No. 107, in

page 10, line 25, after 'appropriate', insert—

'(ba) the appointment shall be revoked no later than six months after commencement unless a new order is made in accordance with the provisions set out in sections 20 and 21'.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 183, in

page 10, line 25, after 'appropriate', insert

'provided that it does not allow for a term exceeding five years'.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

This is a relatively small point, which need not detain the Committee long. The amendment

would make this a sunset clause. Put simply, once an order had been made, it would have to be revisited no later than every six months to ensure that it was still required. The Minister partly answered the point in his comments about guidance, and I suspect that he will reply in broadly the same terms now. However, I would be interested to know why it would be inappropriate for the order to be reconsidered in a positive way every six months, rather than simply being left to lie.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

This is a complete rerun of an earlier debate, so perhaps the Committee can take it as read that I repeat everything that I said then.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

As regards amendment No. 183, perhaps the Committee could also take it as read that I repeat what I said earlier. Let me add, however, that I would be horrified if any traffic director was in place for a year, let alone five years.

That touches on amendment No. 107. As I said earlier, we envisage intervention orders outlining the particulars, objectives, general powers and exit strategy for the intervention. The process might take a month, but if it took six months and two weeks, the amendment would require the entire rigmarole set out in clauses 20 and 21 to be gone through again.

Intervention is meant to be sharply focused, with clear time limits and exit strategies, so that local authorities can, as we all want them to, carry out their network management duty by themselves, on their own terms and in their own fashion, with no intervention from central Government. I do not see what would be achieved by going through the whole process set out in clauses 20 and 21 every six months. That would go against the grain of quick, light-touch intervention.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

Perhaps I can help the Minister. I think that he said that each order would specify the duration of the intervention. If so, I happily agree that the amendment is otiose, and we need discuss it no further. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 4.

Clause 23 - Monitoring and reporting

Clause 24 - Intervention in activities of

Clause 25 - Exercise of local traffic authority functions

Clause 26 - Application of sections 20 to 25 to local traffic authorities exercising functions jointly

Clause 27 - Criteria for making intervention orders

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

With this it will be convenient to take new clause 18—Consultation—

'Prior to the issuing of intervention notices or orders, the Secretary of State shall consult with such organisations as he considers appropriate over the content and timing of such orders and notices and over the criteria against which the performance of a local authority may be assessed.'.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Why will the Minister not produce his performance indicators sooner than the time that he told us, the end of the year? He must recognise that the performance of many highway and traffic authorities is far below the standard that we would wish; surely something can be done sooner than the end of the year to chivvy that along. I do not want to go back over the debate about a particular local authority, namely Northamptonshire, but I ask the Minister whether he is content to allow that authority to carry on as it is until the performance indicators are produced. If the Government are serious about reducing congestion and improving traffic flows, they should introduce their performance indicators sooner than the end of the year.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

We are not publishing that approach until the end of the year at the latest because we want the current performance criteria to be as robust as possible. That involves a great deal of input not only from the Committee, but more importantly from a range of stakeholders, not least the Local Government Association and other local government organisations. We regard that input as vital given that they will be the recipients of any measures that follow failure of such performance criteria.

It is touching that the hon. Gentleman has such an almost childlike, magical view of legislation, as though there will be no network or traffic management until the Bill is passed, but the world is not like that. A number of things are going on in local government and in Government to improve matters, not least, as I have alluded to before, work on local transport plans. Those plans are being assessed against performance, and this year, thanks to the £1.9 billion of funding that I announced just before Christmas, significantly more elements of performance measurement, reward for good performance and improvement are being dealt with.

A host of other interventions—some public, some private—are going on as we speak in highway authorities throughout the country. It is right to discuss the broad criteria in greater detail in order to come up with criteria for performance assessment that local government agrees to from the beginning, rather than simply imposing them from the centre, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman would like.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

A number of organisations, such as the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety, will have a view on some of the detailed guidance. Will the Minister ensure that their views are actually input into his discussions?

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

As I will be party to those matters as they unfold, I shall undertake to meet PACT and any other group to hear their views, above and beyond how we have heard their views thus far through people putting their views to us in debate or by means of amendments, in order to take those matters further. I would not just do that in the context of the network management duty or other elements of the Bill, but in the context of my role as the local transport Minister. I would be more than happy to do that. That is not a universal invitation to every single organisation that might have the word transport in its name, or in brackets after its name, but I will happily talk to serious organisations with serious considerations, such as PACT, in relation to the Bill, or their wider concerns.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes 4

Clause 28 - Guidance to traffic directors

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I beg to move amendment No. 118, in

page 12, line 22, at end add—

'(4A) Such guidance shall reflect the need to ensure that a traffic director improves the level of safety on the roads for which he becomes responsible'.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I shall not detain the Committee for long on the amendment, which reflects a debate we have had several times over on the need to consider safety at various levels. I am not sure I want to add anything to the debate, and I am fairly sure that the Minister has nothing to add. I see that the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East is nodding in agreement with that.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

In this guidance, as in other guidance elsewhere in the Bill, all the elements, including local transport, regional transport, safety and environment, are germane to any powers afforded to the traffic director, as they are to the traffic manager, as they underpin the network management duty. I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes 4.

Clause 29 - Traffic directors in London

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I beg to move amendment No. 119, in

page 12, line 28, leave out from 'director' to end of line 30 and add

'must have regard to the Mayor of London's Transport Strategy prescribed in section 142 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (c.29)'.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 120, in

page 12, line 31, leave out subsection (4).

No. 121, in

page 12, line 35, at end add—

'(5A) In carrying out his duties the traffic director must have regard to the Mayor of London's Transport Strategy prescribed in section 142 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (c.29).'.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

The purpose of these three amendments is to test the Government's thinking in regard to the relationship that a traffic director, once appointed, would have with the Mayor of London. The Greater London area is, for the moment, unique, in that it has an elected Mayor.

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

Hartlepool has a monkey; it is very good.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

The right hon. Gentleman reminds me of Hartlepool, although London was devolved through the Greater London Authority Act 1999, and has a mayor through that, which is slightly different to the position regarding the directly elected mayors in other areas.

I want to find out whether it is right that, were a traffic director to be appointed in one borough, or one area, or under one authority in London, the powers of that traffic director should exceed those that rest with Transport for London and go above the Mayor's strategy. So we have a devolved settlement and a Mayor, but we could have a traffic director in one borough who, through his powers, may be over and above the overall strategy for London being put forward by the Mayor at that time. I would be grateful if the Minister would explain the rationale behind that, and whether it is appropriate.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I assure the hon. Gentleman that all traffic managers and traffic directors within all London boroughs will have to give due cognisance

to the strategies laid out by the Mayor. That is the norm that prevails and will prevail with regard to London boroughs seeking to do their network management duty. However, when we come to intervention we need at least the back stop—a very long back stop, as I have explained already—of the traffic director focusing on the recovery and remedy needed for that particular borough. That may conflict with some directions from the Mayor under some of that office's powers, although I suspect that in most instances it will not, because we do not want to compromise the effectiveness of the traffic director when they are imposed in the last instance. Transport for London are fully aware that, in the context of all these elements, boroughs are obliged to have regard to the Mayor's transport strategy, associated guidance, and direction. Intervention powers give the Secretary of State scope to override such guidance in directions that it considers appropriate. It prays those elements in aid in the letter that it sent to officials to say that it is fully behind the Bill. However, if those elements are to prevail—this harks back to the debate on clause 20 or 21, or whichever clause it was, where people tried to remove the references to the Mayor—it needs that information to be part and parcel of the overall operation.

This is not about unpicking the local government devolution settlement. It is about enhancing the roles at all three levels—centre, strategy, and local—so that the interaction between them that is envisaged in the Bill works. It is done with TFL's indulgence.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes 4.

Clause 30 - Recovery of costs from local traffic authorities

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

As the Minister knows, we are very much against this whole part of the Bill. Why go through a process of enabling costs to be recovered from the local authority when it receives so much largesse from the Department for Transport in the first place? Would it not be better not to give the local authority so much money in the future?

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

I rise to explain to those watching our proceedings why my colleagues and I have voted against clause after clause. It is because these clauses are particularly centralising and we have not been satisfied that the balance is right. I accept that there is a duty on the Government, which is being strengthened by this proposed legislation, to ensure good governance in local authorities—specifically, in this case, to encourage better traffic management. That is an aim that I willingly endorse. However, Conservative Committee members want to make the point that we think the balance has gone too far.

It is visible in clause 30 that whatever cost the national centre decides to incur must be levied on the local authority, even though the national costs may be higher than the realistic costs for that locality and even though that may mess up the budgets for that local authority for the year or years in question.

The issue of local authority finance is always hard fought between Government and local government. The battle can be quite tough, even when local and national government are of similar parties; it is always stronger when there is a party element. My point is not party political; it is that endless arguments over money are inherent in the nature of the relationship between local and central government—whomever the Government are.

It is worrying for local government that the central Government are seeking to take a power that in certain circumstances removes from local government's control an element of its budget. That comes in a year where there might be tight budgeting anyway because of the nature of the local authority settlement. The Minister urges us to accept that these necessary powers will be little-used reserve powers, but I remember that when I was Minister for Local Government, there was an in-built tendency in the world of quangos and central officials always to urge Ministers to use or retain powers, even when those Ministers wished to give powers back, as I did. I had many arguments over urban development corporations' powers: I always wanted to give back areas from UDCs to elected local government, and when we considered taking new areas under control, I wanted them to be areas with no resident population, just derelict land. I found it easier to justify that to myself than taking over areas with large numbers of people, who would normally look to an elected body.

In the quango world, there was an in-built resistance among officials to my view that, wherever possible, things should be returned to democratic control, not taken away. I worry that, under well-intentioned and less well-intentioned Ministers, a similar in-built tendency to use central powers too often will be in the central machine. It is particularly worrying if that central power will be allied with the right to charge anything on to local authorities, whatever their budget circumstances and wherever we might be in the budget year. That would be difficult for local authorities because most of their money comes from the centre, and I doubt that there will be a proportionate increase in the central vote for the relevant local authorities, to take into account the

possibility that the traffic intervention costs more than the local authorities spend on traffic management. I accept that only local authorities that the Government think are managing traffic badly will be affected, but such authorities will have difficulties if the Government impose on them an extra cost, which may be in excess of their budgets for that year, without making any alternative arrangement.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch put forward the attractive idea that the budget should be adjusted in some way, and that a fair view should be taken of the financial situation, which will have been changed by central Government's intervention in a budgetary year. I hope that the Minister will reconsider that potential financial problem.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I do not doubt that the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Christchurch and the right hon. Member for Wokingham, are sincere. They would trouble me, too, were it not for the fact that in clause 30(2), the word ''may'' is used. When an intervention order is made, it is absolutely discretionary whether, from thereon, all the administrative and other costs of the traffic director and of intervention, are borne by the relevant local authority. That is not an obligation. The national authority might decide not to recover the costs from the local authority, and to bear the cost itself. It may well be that the financial state of the relevant local authority is such that to persevere in trying to recover those costs from it would decrease its capability to recover from its parlous position in terms of the traffic management network duty, rather than enhance its ability to overcome those difficulties. That is the degree of flexibility.

If the money is to come from the centre, it is a matter for debate for the national authority whether it should come from the local transport plan process, the standard spending assessment process, or elsewhere, although hon. Members will know that a goodly deal of the Department for Transport's money that goes to local authorities is in capital rather than revenue. That will have to be borne in mind. That should allay the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen's fears about flexibility in the recovery of traffic director costs after an intervention order has been served. There is flexibility: it will not be simply an imposition at local level when a traffic director is appointed. I commend clause 30 to the Committee.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes 4.

Clause 31 - Interpretation of Part 2

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I beg to move amendment No. 127, in

page 13, line 29, at end insert—

' ''car club'' means an organisation whose aims include the reduction of traffic congestion, trading to provide vehicles to its members at an hourly rate for their occasional use.'.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 14A—Provision of parking spaces for car clubs—

'(1) It is the duty of a local traffic authority to make such arrangements as they consider appropriate to facilitate the operation of car clubs in order to secure the reduction of road congestion.

(2) A local traffic authority shall require every organisation seeking to operate as a car club to register their constitution, rules and membership numbers and may at their discretion approve such an organisation as a registered car club.

(3) The arrangements in subsection (1) shall include the provision of parking spaces for which they do not make a charge for the sole use of registered car clubs.'.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

Amendment No. 127 would include the definition of a car club in the list of definitions, and new clause 14A would provide authorities with the power to take into account the needs of car clubs. Car clubs are a relatively new concept, and they are growing apace in Europe and the United States. Members get rid of their car to join a club and research suggests that about 1.5 per cent. of drivers will become car club members and that membership reduces the number of miles they do by car by between 50 per cent. and 70 per cent.

For each car club in existence about four to 10 privately owned cars are removed from the streets, easing the pressure on parking. Members increase their use of public transport and that helps to alleviate social exclusion. There are many arguments in favour of car clubs. I do not intend to make them now; I simply wish to point out that, if they were introduced in this country, they would require legislation.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I have a lot of sympathy with the notion of car clubs, of pooling cars and of all sorts of other ways of getting everything but drivers driving on their own round our towns, cities and countryside—especially to and from work. I am not entirely sure of the legality—legality is the wrong word, but it will do at this hour—of simply throwing a definition into a list of definitions that refers to everything in the clause. The clause is a glossary for part 2, and I am not sure that throwing in a definition of car clubs would define a statutory duty. That is by the by, but it seems inappropriate.

Local authorities can already deal with most of the subsequent provisions in new clause 14A, because they have the power to designate parking spaces on highways through sections 32 and 45 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. Such spaces may be provided for a particular class of vehicle—for example, residents' parking bays. I do not believe that there is any difficulty in using the 1984 Act to achieve what the hon. Gentleman wants through the new clause.

Andrew Miller (Labour, Ellesmere Port and Neston)

The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross may not be aware that the Minister's departmental predecessor helped to

promote car clubs in a very positive way. Curiously enough, they are supported not only by people living in communities where there are problems, but by the vehicle industry.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I do not know whether he is referring to a club in the north-west, but I was going more appropriately to cite one in Edinburgh; appropriate not only because the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross moved the amendment, but because of the right hon. Member who happens to be the MP for Edinburgh, Central. We are supporting a car plus car club advisory service in Edinburgh with a £60,000 per annum grant. Given that those powers exist in the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, it is for local authorities, in the context of devolution mentioned by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, to determine whether they want to designate parking bays in such a fashion and whether they want—through their local transport plan submissions—to facilitate such schemes on the roads, through parking or otherwise. As I say, I have sympathy with the schemes but it is not for central Government to impose on local government such powers, not least when they already exist, should the local authority want to use them. In the spirit of fully supporting the sentiment of the amendments, but not their position, whether that is cheeky or otherwise, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I am grateful to the Minister for his answer. I will not attempt to repeat the onomatopoeic name of the car club that he came up with in Edinburgh, as that is a long way south of my constituency. I am grateful for his explanation. Those who brought the matter to my attention had felt that there might be need for legislation. I was looking for a convenient peg on which to hang a small debate. We have had the small debate. The peg was clearly not the right one, but it served its purpose.

I ask only that if anybody who is interested in promoting car clubs approaches the Minister's Department for help, it will be kind enough to afford them whatever help they need. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would do that anyway. In that spirit, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 4.

Clause 32 - Meaning of ''permit scheme''

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I beg to move amendment No. 167, in

page 14, line 5, after second 'specified', insert 'traffic-sensitive'.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 185, in

page 14, line 23, leave out subsection (3).

No. 168, in

clause 38, page 17, line 35, at end insert—

' ''Traffic-sensitive street'' has the meaning given by section 64 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991.'.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

This is a completely different subject: permit schemes. Following their consultation, the Government have come up with an interesting concept. Those people who will end up operating the permit schemes have a number of concerns about the proposals.

One of those concerns is reflected in amendment No. 167, which would avoid delaying work and increasing red tape in areas that are not prone to significant levels of traffic, thus enabling the focus to be on managing those areas where congestion is greatest. The amendment would also alleviate fears that the permit system is about generating revenue for local authorities rather than about improving co-ordination. There is an important precedent. Clause 64(2)(a) in part 3 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 refers to traffic-sensitive areas, so the provisions apply only to areas where traffic is a sensitive issue. It is of some surprise to people that the Government have not included a restriction to the application of permit schemes to traffic-sensitive streets in the same way as under the 1991 Act. Much of the work undertaken by the utilities is in urban streets and is of short duration and high volume, thereby creating little congestion. Permit schemes could have the greatest effect on reducing congestion by focusing on streets where traffic is at its greatest. The danger of permit schemes being all embracing is that local authorities would drown in a volume of permit applications, unless they increased their resources considerably, and they might mismanage instances where congestion is severe. There is also the question of how quickly people could obtain permits. One of the greatest concerns that many people have when dealing with local authorities is the time that it takes to receive an answer to a question. A scheme will not be effective if it is too complicated and too bound up with red tape. That is why I hope that the Government will accept the amendment.

Amendment No. 185 would remove the definition specified in the clause. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne will speak to that amendment also, but the key point is to try to ensure that any permit scheme is restricted to the areas in which it will provide some benefit.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I shall speak to amendment No. 185. In debates of this sort, the Minister, and other Ministers, has told me that my amendments are

unnecessary, repetitive, and otiose or whatever else he wants to call it. However, I have never managed to achieve the heights of unnecessary verbiage that I find in subsection (3), which states:

''In this section ''specified'' means specified''.

Golly gosh! Really? How exciting. It goes on:

''or of a description specified''.

Even more golly gosh. What on earth are we doing by saying, ''In this Act, a word we use means the word we use.''? It is barmy beyond belief.

Mr. McNulty rose—

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

Get out of that one!

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

Far be it for me, as hon. Members have probably discerned today, to jump to the defence of lawyers or the gobbledegook that we sometimes have to deal with. However, the subsection makes sense if it is read properly, so I shall jump to the lawyers' defence and resist amendment No. 185. The commas do it all, so the subsection can be read as,

''In this section ''specified'' means specified . . . in a permit scheme'',

or,

''In this section ''specified'' means . . . a description specified in a permit scheme.''

That makes perfect sense to me. Perhaps I am turning into a lawyer because I have sat on too many Committees. The alternative would be to have to say, ''specified in a permit scheme'' again and again whenever parts 1 and 2 said ''specified''. It is clumsy, I grant you. At best, I cheerfully accept that it is middle English, or Germanic grammar rather than English grammar, but it makes sense once one reads the whole subsection.

John Redwood (Conservative, Wokingham)

We then have doubling and trebling and not only tautology, but tripology, or whatever. The main part of subsection (2) is governed by a permit scheme. We are then reinserting ''permit scheme'' in the subsection where it is already.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I will not labour the point. The right hon. Gentleman can collar one of those lawyers afterwards. I have defended their honour, and at 10 to 5 on a Thursday afternoon, I am going no further. I do, however, take his point, in part at the very least.

I take the point about traffic-sensitive streets, as outlined in section 64B in the previous Act. That is a reasonable place to start. I would also throw into the pot the fact that, throughout the Bill, we are trying to start from as many perspectives as we possibly can, allowing, through this and subsequent sections, specificity at the local level. That is troublesome, rather like last year's experience with the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2003; it was a Christmas tree Bill, with lots of general outlines, but not much substance, which came thereafter in the hanging baubles of guidance or regulation. I am loth to accept the amendments, because, as undertaken, I would far rather consult more with local authorities, see what comes out of some of the pilots, talk to the utilities; I want to get the more detailed definitions by getting the regulations right. That may or may not accord with section 64A(2)(a) of the Act. I would far

rather that we set out the basic principles of what a permit scheme should be, but then got to that level of detail in regulations, where it would matter substantively for those who will be most directly involved. That is why, although the amendments are well intentioned and may well be where we end up, I would ask that they be withdrawn.

The point of law—which I do not want to labour—is that traffic-sensitive, as outlined in the 1991 Act, means the relationship between the utilities and local authorities, the notice given and a range of other things. I do not want to create the illusion that that is what I am saying. I want to get to a stage where we have clearly defined, substantive regulations on the basis of that round of consultation with local authorities, the utilities and others most directly involved. The clause as it stands is merely about defining—ill-defining, perhaps—the permit scheme, rather than that level of detail. I would ask to leave that detail to regulation, and that the amendments be withdrawn.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

If we were talking about tens of thousands of incidents each year, I might accept what the Minister says, but we know from his regulatory impact assessment that in the last year for which figures are available there were no fewer than 1.1 million individual street works. The idea that we are going to establish a permit scheme for 1.1 million permit applications per year is totally ludicrous. It would be better to put some sensible restriction into the primary legislation. The individual street works carried out in what are currently described as traffic-sensitive streets are far fewer than 1.1 million. If we are not sensible, local government is going to be bound up in its own red tape and bureaucracy. I am not prepared to accept that it is reasonable for the Government to go ahead with a blank cheque to impose permit schemes on each of 1.1 million individual sets of street works as proposed.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I know that I should not, at nearly 5 o'clock on a Thursday, but the hon. Gentleman's obtuseness provokes me. We are not imposing permit schemes on anybody. We are defining clearly under law what a permit scheme is and the rest of the section goes on to define how a permit scheme can be applied for. To say that 1.1 million incursions into the roads are now going to be under some national permit scheme is daft in the extreme, even daft for the hon. Gentlemen.

Mr. Wilshire rose—

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I am berating the hon. Member for Christchurch; I do not want to have to berate the hon. Member for Spelthorne as well.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I shall try not to berate the Minister either, but I thought I heard him say that they are not trying to impose a permit scheme on anybody. Clause 33(2) says:

''The appropriate national authority may direct a local highway authority, or two or more such authorities acting together, to prepare and submit to him a permit scheme''.

Is that not forcing a permit scheme on to people?

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

I shall berate the hon. Gentleman. Quite how he, in his obtuseness and vacuity, reads into

that a universal imposition of a permit scheme, I know not. That clause is there precisely for the reasons we suggested earlier, which had broad agreement; there will be occasions when two local authorities abut and where it is more appropriate for there to be one permit scheme shared by the two of them for the efficacy of the roadworks in that area.

Mr. Wilshire rose—

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

For the last time.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

The Minister should read his own Bill. He said that it would be sensible for two or more authorities to do something together, and that I am being obtuse. If clause 33(1) states that a local authority, or two or more such authorities acting together, may prepare—

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

May.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

That is the point about which the Minister says that I am being obtuse; that two authorities may act together if they wish. The point that I made was that he then takes powers to order them to do so if they will not.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

Clause 33(1) says that they may do so, and 33(2) says that there may be circumstances in which we feel that two local authorities should do so and that we may impose that. I do not know where, in all that, there is a Stalinist, universal, national scheme being imposed on anyone.

It was in that context that I objected to what the hon. Member for Christchurch said. The serious point that underpins our resistance to the amendments is that we do not think it appropriate to include that level of detail in the Bill, not least because of—without wishing to bore people again—undue specificity. Moreover, we have not consulted in any detail those who will be most affected by the regulations; the local authorities and the utilities. Our opinion is that the level of detail needed should be included in the regulations rather than in the Bill. The definition of traffic-sensitive streets may be appropriate for some areas and not others. It would be appropriate to include that level of detail in the Bill, if we were doing that of which the hon. Gentleman accused us; universally imposing a permit scheme. However, we are not doing that, so it is not appropriate, and he is wrong.

Question put, That the amendment be made:–

The Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 7.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

I beg to move amendment No. 155, in

page 14, line 15, leave out subsection (c) and insert—

'(c) as to cases in which emergency, minor and specified works may be carried out without a permit.'.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 34, in

page 14, line 22, at end insert—

'(2A) No permit shall be required for, or in connection with, any works which are required by reason of an emergency.'.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

I suspect that, in a moment, I shall be attacked for undue specificity. However, if I make the case, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will respond to it.

I appreciate that the Minister says that permit schemes will not apply all over the place and that there will be the kind of common sense that he expects. However, some fears have been expressed by the utilities and by people who will use the permit schemes. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to allay those fears.

Many emergency works take place. There are more than 1 million gas leaks every year, and flooding often occurs when emergency work is removing an obstruction. In such emergency works, the delay in being part of a permit scheme would be unacceptable. I am sure that that will be covered in the guidance and in the negotiations, but it would be helpful if the Minister clarified the matter.

Many minor works occur, but cause minimum disruption. They tend to be in areas that do not cause the maximum disruption to road users, on the verges and of limited duration, so they tend not to impede the flow of traffic. They are far more numerous than the major infrastructure works that cause many of the problems.

The genesis of the amendment was the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, which defined such works. I appreciate that the Opposition have an amendment on the subject, but it goes wider than what I suggest; indeed, it may be too broad. If the permit schemes are to concentrate on the better control and co-ordination of projects, removing minor works and emergency works will be a major step forward.

Broadband connection is one of my key concerns. The broadband cable network has generally been installed, so the major infrastructure works are complete. However, many of the connections from roads to properties have not yet been made. Such works are of a minor nature and tend not to hold up traffic on major roads, but they are done in response to customer demand, and the companies often have to respond quickly. Having to subject such works to a permit scheme will cause problems in other parts of the economy.

A large part of the Bill is about improving the economy by removing congestion, as it results in costs for industry. I would be concerned if the inadvertent consequence of a permit scheme was that it stopped smaller companies responding to that demand by allowing the bigger players like BT, which could afford the time—although they may dispute the fact—to take a bigger part of the market. I am concerned about

competitiveness, and I hope that the Minister will address the concerns of the marketplace.

I hope that the Minister will not do what the Minister of State, Department for Transport did when he was the Minister debating the Communications Act 2003; he accepted a Conservative amendment and then gave me grief. I am sure that he will not do that.

Andrew Miller (Labour, Ellesmere Port and Neston)

I want briefly to reinforce what was said by my hon. Friend. I remind the Minister of the exchange earlier this month between the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) and the Secretary of State for Transport in which the hon. Gentleman asked a question on that precise subject. The Secretary of State replied:

''The hon. Gentleman is right that that is an essential part of the United Kingdom economy and we want to encourage it.''—[Official Report, 5 January 2004; Vol. 416, c. 42.]

We need a practical mechanism that distinguishes between short-term slit trenches, which might be there for a couple of hours, and major roadworks that may require a whole road to be dug up—perhaps to replace a sewer. Getting the balance right is difficult. We do not want an overly bureaucratic system, as it could create the competitive disadvantages mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East.

I know that the Minister has received representations from the technology companies, who recognise the need for such a mechanism and know that they must take part in the process. However, the general plea is that it should not affect the country's competitive interests. I realise that the Minister has a difficult balancing act to perform, but it is important that he puts his thoughts on that point on the record.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

We have had two excellent contributions to the debate. In supporting what has been said, I also commend to the Minister my amendment No. 34, which addresses the same point. Emergency works will need to be carried out for the foreseeable future, particularly given the state both of our water infrastructure, which will take years to get right, and of our gas infrastructure—people are talking about another 25 years before that is sorted out. Given that, there are going to be many emergencies. Action needs to be taken straight away in an emergency, so why cannot the Government say in primary legislation that permit schemes will not be required for, or in connection with, works that are required because of an emergency? That is what amendment No. 34 asks for.

I hope that the Minister will recognise my proposal as a way of restricting the ambit of permit schemes and gaining the confidence of those who deal with the permit regime. Entrepreneurs and the utility companies greatly suspect and fear that, as a result of the Government's proposals, they will be burdened with an enormous amount of additional bureaucracy, which will be damaging to them and the UK economy.

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

The best way to ensure the confidence of those who are most directly involved, whether they be from local government or the utilities, is to consult them and thrash out exactly what the definitions will be in regulations. It is terribly easy to

ask, ''What is a minor work?'', but it is enormously difficult to answer that. A minor work on a little side road, even in the middle of the street, may be fairly non-disruptive; yet a minor work in the middle of Victoria street may be minor by any definition of size, but will cause God knows what sort of disruption. I fear that the same may be true of ''emergency''. What is an emergency? Where does the definition start and stop?

The Bill says clearly that there is scope to define in the permit scheme what specified works will not require permits. Although that is broad, it is the hook on which we, along with the utilities and local government, will hang definitions of minor works and emergency works. That is a far more appropriate, confidence-building approach than seeking to include things in the Bill in an overly specific fashion—I was going to say ''anally retentive fashion'', but I should not say that. Things do not have a greater import just because they are included in the Bill. It is the hook in the Bill, rather than a certain level of detail, that will give the regulations their teeth.

I take the importance of broadband and other infrastructural connections to our economy as seriously as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State did on 5 January. We are not putting obstacles and traps in the way of people going about their lawful business. Much of this work is what the utilities already do, and many of the powers are those that local councils already have. The provisions draw together the powers relating to permit schemes, and those that will apply to street works, and put some co-ordination and liaison into the equation. The notion that the nasty Government are wielding a big stick, and trammelling contractors and the utilities with one arm behind their backs so that they cannot get on with their work, is absolute and abject nonsense. The proposals are designed to allow everyone who needs to get at or under the roads to do so more efficiently than prevailing conditions allow, even though the relevant provisions can be found in many existing laws.

The key point is that whether we are talking about an emergency, minor works or, as was mentioned, traffic-sensitive streets, the specifics are better fleshed out in detail through regulations. That is best done with the very people in local government and the utilities who are directly involved, as the hon. Member for Christchurch said, rather than in Committee, no matter how glorious our collective expertise. In that spirit I ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

The Minister mentioned utilities, but he did not mention the telcos. Given their interest, would they be included in his consultation?

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

We shall seek to involve those who are or will be most directly involved in street works, permit schemes and utilising services underneath our streets. I use ''utilities'' as a shorthand term, which of course includes telecommunications, broadband, and so on.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

On the basis of the Minister's helpful response, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

May I take this opportunity to put one question to the Minister? In the debate on amendment No. 167, he said that a permit scheme could be the subject of an experiment. Does he have it mind for the permit scheme to be piloted before it is introduced nationally? It is clear from the regulatory impact assessment how empty the scheme is of detail. On the basis that we have had a pilot on the lane rental proposals, and the studies have produced interesting and perhaps unexpected results, does the Minister agree that it would be better to pilot such a permit regime in particular areas rather than draw up a scheme for a national roll out?

Tony McNulty (Labour, Harrow East)

Let me turn that round, because we are not drawing up a scheme for national roll out. We are providing permissive powers to allow local authorities to apply for permit schemes should they want to. The Bill is not providing for a universal roll out or a centrally imposed scheme, as the hon. Gentleman suggested 10 minutes ago. Will we encourage authorities to work actively with the first one or two authorities that implement such a scheme to see how it can work? I suspect that the answer is yes, but not in the context of a national pilot or centrally imposed scheme. The hon. Gentleman should unpick his ideology, his objections to the Labour Government and what he thinks we will do from what is in the Bill and what we are actually going to do.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 32 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 33 - Preparation of permit schemes

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I beg to move amendment No. 35, in

page 14, line 29, leave out subsection (2).

The amendment would remove the ability of the national authority to require a local authority to have a permit scheme. That is the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne quickly seized on when the Minister indicated earlier that he had no intention of imposing permit schemes. If he has no such intention, there is no need to have the provision in subsection (2). I hope that he will agree to the amendment.

Brian White (Labour, North East Milton Keynes)

The fact that the Whip has moved our business forward quickly means that several of my amendments will not be discussed, but I want to make one point in opposition to the hon. Member for Christchurch.

We must consider the business constraints of operators, who do not want problems with different local authorities having different permit schemes. The Minister's ability to bring such authorities together is critical. However, will he assure me that, if that power is used, any Minister will consider the issues of authorities that cross regional boundaries and ensure that regional transport plans cover them? For authorities such as my own, which borders on three regions, that is an issue.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.