We now come on to the strategy and, by implication, the money. The Government have commendably said that they want a steady strategy that is going to last some time, with an allocation of resources against it. That in itself is highly desirable, but it is not so dramatically different from the various road programmes that have existed in the past and have been subject to sudden change, as the Minister said, mainly because of changes to financial arrangements but also because of planning delays and technical problems with the projects when they go beyond the initial feasibility study.
The national infrastructure plan, which has a lot of roads in it, broken down on a regional basis, is presumably going to be built on and represented as the strategic highways plan, and there will be a five-year programme of money attached to it. My Amendment 14 attempts to ensure that that five-year view is reflected in the Bill. The Government have made quite a lot of the five-year thing, but although I have not read every
word of Schedule 3, I do not see it in the Bill. There are arguments as to whether five years is enough, given that it takes that long even to get anywhere near starting, but the five-year funding has been an important plank of the Government’s selling of this project, and I think that it should appear somewhere in the Bill.
My wording may not be quite right, but I think that it should be a rolling five-year programme, so that in year 3 you are still looking five years ahead. You would add to it, and you would add the financial commitment related to it at that point. My wording does not exactly say that, but that is what I am after. If the department can find better wording, that is so much the better. However, we should at least write into the Bill the embedding of a minimum five-year view and that it should be on a rolling basis and have money attached. Otherwise, a lot of the rationale for this whole exercise disappears. That is what Amendment 14 is about. The Government have made a start with the designation of projects within the national infrastructure programme and can turn that into a highways strategy, and the Chancellor has made the commitment for these five years.
The Government seem slightly naive in their confidence that the Treasury will never revisit this because it is now an arm’s-length company. The past 50 years have seen cuts to the money that has gone to private companies, to nationalised corporations and to local authorities. The fact that they are arm’s length from government has not stopped the Treasury deciding at particular points to change what it had previously—in effect—promised. So far nobody has managed to sue the Chancellor for that; I doubt whether it will be any different under this new arrangement. That may be a bit cynical. As the Minister said, it would be more embarrassing to do that, but my experience of Treasury Ministers and Treasury officials over the past few decades does not indicate that they are easily embarrassed. Indeed, interfering with other departments’ clear priorities is the way that the Treasury works, rightly or wrongly. Therefore, the benefits of having an allocation for five years can be exaggerated. Nevertheless, it is a desirable aim, and it is desirable that we know for those five years what projects are there and what stage they are at. Since it is a rolling programme, moving from feasibility study to planning, to precise engineering design, to the start of digging and through to actual completion of the road, it is desirable that it should appear in a five-year perspective. Before we finish the Bill, I hope that a form of words can be adopted that makes sure that that is reflected in the Act. If it provides a bit of embarrassment to future Treasury Ministers, so much the better, and so much easier will future Transport Ministers find their relations with the Treasury.
My Amendment 16 raises the broader issue of strategy. We have an infrastructure strategy but not a specific transport strategy. It needs to be made clear how the roads strategy, or highways strategy, fits in with the broader transport strategy—rail, ports and airports in particular. The whole logistical structure and the balance within it in terms of our economy, what pressure is put on the transport system and what the regional balance and stress points are, need to be
reflected in all modes and, indeed, different corridors need to be judged on a multimodal basis. If they are not, simply having a sacrosanct—or near-sacrosanct—roads strategy will deal only with part of the problem. My Amendment 16 relates to putting the roads strategy into that broader context. I beg to move.