My hon. Friend makes a good point, which I would have made myself, about certainty for businesses, particularly those that have to plan a long way ahead. Many businesses that invest in south Wales involve the transport of heavy materials, so they use haulage companies.
We need as much detail as possible. If the Minister cannot give us that today, I would appreciate it if he told us when he can give us a timetable for all the different parts of the process: the consultation, the ending of the concession, what will happen then, how long it will happen for and what he intends to do about moving to a tariff that reflects only maintenance charges.
We are so determined to move to a maintenance-only charge because it already seems unfair to pay even for the maintenance of the crossings when we do not have a pay-as-you-go system for any other roads, with one or
two small exceptions in the UK. To make one road into a pay-as-you-go system when none of the others is seems totally unfair. It would be absolutely monstrous for it to become a cash cow, because that would be a tax raised on one small group of people, which would be totally out of kilter with any other form of taxation.
I would be interested if the Minister gave any indication of whether the Government intend to keep the matter as a UK Government responsibility, or whether he intends to open the discussion about whether it might be devolved. We really want to open a dialogue with the Minister and get as many answers as possible. We want a very clear timetable to be set out so that we all know where we are, and so that our businesses and industry know where they are and can make the necessary investment decisions. That investment would come to Wales much more readily than it will if businesses see no end to the “continual taxation” on the bridges.
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