My Lords, through these amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and others seek to ensure that the impact of the road investment strategy on the various local road networks and other transport infrastructure is considered. This is an important argument, and I need to be clear that, through the licence, we are requiring the strategic highways company to have an asset management strategy. Understanding the condition of its assets is absolutely key to this.
The condition and performance of the local road network are, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, clearly outlined, matters for the local highway authority. Frankly, we would not wish to include in the Bill a requirement to survey the condition of local roads, because its focus is the strategic road network. We are not anxious to usurp authorities’ powers. I share the assessment of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that the tasks are currently well carried out by local authorities, which, I suspect, would not want to surrender a lot of resources and have the task taken over by a centralised body.
That said, we want this new company to co-operate with its partner road networks. The route strategies, with which I think many of your Lordships will be familiar, are a key source of information in developing the road investment strategy. They provide local authorities and, by extension, local highway authorities with a mechanism to work with the new company and thus ensure that the impact on the local road networks of interventions on the strategic road network is considered. We think that that will be an extremely effective mechanism and it is well provided for in the legislation as it stands.
In addition, as part of the changes elsewhere in the Bill, the company will, as I have said before, become a traffic authority. That is new and means that it will be subject to the network management duty—a legal obligation on all local traffic authorities to ensure, among other things, that traffic flows smoothly from one jurisdiction to another. At present, the Highways Agency is not subject to this requirement, so this will be a new guarantee of co-operation.
I could start to list the kind of support that we are offering for local roads but, setting aside our significant financial contribution, I also want to make it clear that we are supporting efforts by local authorities to share knowledge and best practice under the highways maintenance efficiency programme, as well as encouraging co-operation and common procurement. There is therefore a gathering momentum to achieve much more co-operation and partnership working, which will continue under the new arrangements.
I talked earlier about aligning road and rail investment strategies, so I will not repeat that. Instead, I shall use this occasion to underscore how much we recognise that there is significant value in Network Rail and the new strategic highways company working together on the kinds of issues that your Lordships have listed. However, we do not think that you need a legislative mechanism to try to prescribe how those two companies should work together. We would find it extraordinary if they chose not to, and I doubt that the Secretary of State would permit them to ignore each other in that way.
It is entirely appropriate that the road investment strategy and the new company’s response to it will have due regard to the national network’s national policy statement—that is a mouthful. However, it would not be appropriate to create a formal link between what is a planning document and what is, in effect, a funding and investment plan. The two documents align but there is not a hierarchy between them.
On that basis, looking through the details of the amendments, we think that the underlying issues that are of concern to your Lordships are already addressed. Therefore, we feel that the amendments are not needed and we hope very much that the noble Lord will feel comfortable in withdrawing the one he has moved.