Local Transport Bill [Lords]

I shall come to that clause in a moment. I am astounded that the Bill seeks to water down the requirements to consult local communities on charging schemes. The Opposition will strongly oppose clause 104, which contains the same text as the much-criticised clause 73 of the draft Bill, which downgrades the importance of consultation. We note the concerns expressed on the clause by organisations such as the Select Committee on Transport, the RAC Foundation for Motoring and the Association of British Drivers. As the Bill passes through the Commons, we want consultation requirements strengthened, not weakened. For example, given the impact that congestion charging can have on rail services, it is vital that the consultation process includes rail and freight operators. I note the useful representations received from Network Rail on that point, emphasising how important it is that local authorities take into account relevant rail plans, such as route utilisation strategies in a range of activities touched on by the Bill, including the local transport plans covered by clause 9. We have said time and again that these schemes should go ahead only if they are locally led—if they have the consent and support of local people. That is why we will table amendments to empower and encourage local authorities to hold referendums either before introducing such schemes or once they have been up and running for a trial period. We do not seek to mandate this approach, but we wish to send the signal that a referendum should always be seriously considered as an option, and we will seek to clarify the legal status of local referendums. It is a concern in Bolton, for example, that should the referendum that the local authority is contemplating in that area go ahead, it would have no legal status at all. During the passage of the Bill, we will do all we can to ensure that it cannot be used as a Trojan horse for the introduction of the Government's untried, untested spy-in-the-sky national road pricing scheme. Our steadfast opposition to such a scheme is just one of the reasons why we shall oppose clause 115, which could make Wales a potential test bed for the Government's national scheme by giving the Welsh Assembly power to introduce charging on all Welsh trunk roads. No such power for equivalent English roads is included in the Bill. Why should the Welsh have to put up with unpopular policies that the Government are, as yet, not quite foolhardy enough to put into practice elsewhere in the UK? It is a matter of huge concern that that significant revenue-raising power is being introduced by the back door in a transport Bill without the high-level debate on the constitutional implications of the change proposed. As the noble Lord Glentoran pointed out in the other place, the clause effectively gives the Assembly the power to levy taxation in Wales, despite the fact that it has no such power within the current constitutional settlement. There is, of course, every danger that the provision could be used as a stalking horse for a UK-wide scheme. Labour's deeply unpopular spy-in-the-sky national road pricing policy just will not seem to die; just when we think we have nailed it, it returns to grab us by the throat again. The national scheme was announced with a fanfare by the now Chancellor during his tenure at the Department for Transport, but the Government seemed to signal a retreat on it after 1.8 million people signed the Downing street petition opposing it. Given the shift in emphasis to local projects, it began to look as if the Secretary of State had recognised how misguided the Government's plans for a national scheme were. Yet sadly it transpires that, just as happened with home information packs, her voice is not heard very loudly in the Government—lo and behold, the Chancellor suddenly announced plans to revive national road pricing in his Budget. The truth is that such a scheme is fraught with risks. In the hands of the Government, an IT system to track every one of the 33 million vehicles on every road in Britain, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, is simply a public procurement disaster waiting to happen. There is no reason to believe that the DVLA has the quality of data needed to make such a system operate smoothly in practice, given its inadequate performance on rogue drivers and tax evasion. Even the Government's own figures suggest that details for as many as 7.5 million drivers may be wrong. Above all, how could we possibly trust this Government—the people who lost in the post the personal details of every family in the country—with sensitive data on where every vehicle is on every road on every day of every year? There might have been technical ways in which to tackle those privacy issues, but the catastrophic breaches of data security in recent months show clearly that the Government simply could not be trusted to put them into practice in a competent way. The series of data disasters show that the Government have failed in their basic duty to safeguard the interests of the people whom they were elected to serve. The Government have well and truly forfeited the right to be trusted in running the national road pricing scheme that they propose. That is one of the reasons why we shall oppose giving the Bill a Second Reading. In conclusion, we believe that in their 10 years in office, the Government have wholly failed to tackle congestion. We have the most overcrowded roads in Europe. The Government have abandoned their targets for cutting congestion, broken their promises and left many local communities waiting years for much-needed bypasses. Their quality contract proposals were always a retrograde step, and it is no wonder they have lain unused, gathering dust on the legislative shelf, since the Government introduced them. We have seen the Government running for cover on their flagship roads policy, and 1.8 million people expressing their strong opposition. The Bill fails to make up for the 10 years of Labour failure on local transport. That is why we have tabled the amendment.