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Road Safety Bill [HL]

I apologise for worrying the Minister with nagging details, but the questions from all sides of the Committee are slightly more than nagging details. They are major concerns about what such areas will be, who will look after them and how they will be designed and maintained. We do not want to see swaths of motorways turned into picnic areas with tables that are not maintained, where, as has been suggested, fly-tipping takes place and where there are unmanned and not very clean toilets, for which no one seems to have any responsibility. In my questioning, I have tried to clarify these points, not to be annoying or to dwell on nagging details, but because they need answering. I am not suggesting that the Minister or his civil servants have not given them any thought, but somebody needs to spell out, either before the next stage of the Bill or during it, what plans have been made. Who is going to seek planning permission for these picnic areas? Will it be the Highways Agency? If so, will it then be the agency on which we can pin responsibility if they are not properly maintained? Will there be any commercial input into the picnic areas apart from a small cafeteria providing odd cups of coffee? If there was to be a commercial input, would the business be made responsible for maintaining the site? Motorways are frightening and tiring places. When pulling off, the last thing one wants to see is something that is even more frightening and even more disturbing. I will come back to this matter because we need answers on what exactly is happening with these areas and the means by which they are going to be maintained. My questions were quite specific. I am sure that the civil servants will have noted them; they will certainly be in Hansard. I hope very much that we might be able to get some answers to them, either now or at the next stage. For today, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 139 not moved.] Clause 39 agreed to.