My Lords, Amendment 32 is designed to probe two issues: the motivation behind the move to a strategic highways company and the extent to which the Minister will be able to affect its day-to-day operations. We are concerned about the cost implications of putting the Highways Agency at arm’s length because doing so could result in significantly increased managerial pay. In fact, there have been comments by informed individuals to suggest that that is certainly one of the attractions of the proposal. It will free the company from the constraints of Civil Service pay. We are also concerned about the issue of additional VAT payments. At present, considerable sums are returned on the basis of the role played by the Highways Agency, but as a company, of course, it will not receive such concessions and will have to meet its VAT obligations in full. We are concerned about fines because we are not at all sure about how any fines would be levied, and on whom. We are concerned about poor value cyclical investments, and we are concerned about the reduced flexibility of the Government in the area of spending in the future.
We recognise that the point of this attempt at improving the infrastructure basis of the Department for Transport as far as roads are concerned is about guaranteeing that certain sums will be spent in the future so that infrastructure projects which clearly need a long time-line of assured expense will have that guarantee. However, we also need some assurance from the Minister that the absolutely critical issue of ensuring that the necessary flexibility, either when situations change or the perspective of Ministers alters, is available. According to the transparency page on the Highways Agency website, at present the top five jobholders all make significantly more than £100,000
a year. One would have thought that in the context of pay in the public service and the other advantages of being in the public sector—the oft-quoted security of pensions, although that is becoming less advantageous as time goes by; job security, although by heavens one cannot talk to many civil servants and get the impression that they feel they enjoy job security—people on salaries of over £100,000 could be expected to discharge a significant area of responsibility. Let us consider whether the pay at the top of the strategic highways company will be boosted by any additional income streams. The Government have quite clearly indicated that these proposals have nothing to do with a long-term perspective on road pricing; we had that discussion at the end of our sitting last week. However, if there are no additional income streams, the taxpayer will be paying those potentially increased wages of the staff.
The impact assessment lists pay and remuneration under the heading “Institutional constraints under central controls”. I want to know what central controls those are, or yet again is a model being followed that we know all too well, in fair weather and in foul, of creating a non-governmental body and seeing its salaries inflate so that they match the private sector, which can always be relied upon to have a significant differential between the top few and the very many who do a great deal of the work and are responsible to them? Is that what we are going to see again prior to privatisation? I beg to move.