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Light Rail

: Yes, there is a genuine reason to drill down into the costs and find out why they are as they are. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale wants the Department to go down that route. However, perhaps we should consider simple continental comparisons for capital costs. I mentioned the figure of £13.2 million per kilometre for projected costs in the UK. The Bordeaux tram scheme is coming in at about £18 million per kilometre. The Paris scheme, the T3, is coming in at about £15.4 million per kilometre. Even quite modest schemes in Portugal and Barcelona are coming in at between £8 million and £10 million per kilometre. Across the board tram schemes are pretty expensive, and the British ones do not necessarily compare as unfavourably as we might think with those on the continent. The Merseytram scheme was to be 19 km in length and the projected Paris scheme is much shorter. Were it to be extended to the same length as the Mersey scheme would have been, it would come in at about £400 million. That will give hon. Members an idea of the comparative costs—even with the high consultancy costs and utility costs for British schemes, and the significant local subsidies that go into continental schemes in addition to Government subsidies. Some of the schemes that we are developing have, none the less, unique features. I want to dwell briefly on an aspect of the Merseyside scheme that died the death yesterday. It was unique in some ways compared with many of the continental models, because it would have joined a series of wards and constituencies where there are large numbers of people who might be described as socially excluded in many ways. It was advanced primarily as a regeneration scheme. Many of the continental schemes do not do that, but tend to link together areas of high economic activity. While we are going through the blame-laying exercise for the Merseyside scheme we may ponder what the Department's take on that would be. The right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) put forward the view that the local authorities in Liverpool were not united. I have been present at some meetings at which they were very united, but had slightly different takes on the matter. Authorities such as Knowsley and Liverpool city council, which stood wholly to benefit, would obviously be, on balance, more enthusiastic than those such as Wirral, which needed to worry about the repercussions such as the cost of tolls and so on. I reject what the right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East said about Merseyside political culture being dysfunctional, because that is not true across the board in relation to all kinds of schemes.