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Local Transport

I think that both hon. Gentlemen will be drawing their pensions long before that happens. I can imagine a future Prime Minister going around the Cabinet table and asking how each Department is contributing to tackling the important issue of climate change, and the Transport Secretary saying, ““I am delivering nothing because local government will not play ball.”” I really do not see that as a credible position, but, at the same time, there has to be some degree of local autonomy. That highlights the difficulty that we face in debating these matters. We have a democratically accountable transport authority for the whole of London and my area provides an example of some of the difficulties that communities face in getting a London-wide authority to pay attention to the minute detail of some of the transport issues at a local level. The authority looks at the broader picture. It quite rightly holds up the fact that it has been able to transfer a significant number of people from private cars to public transport and points to that success. But, at the same time, when local communities ask for minor alterations in bus services and extensions to local transport services, they find that their voices are drowned out in the wider context of the debate about London-wide transport issues. It is difficult for communities to get themselves heard. That is an example of what we are talking about in terms of the relationship between local government and central Government. In an intervention on the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael), a Conservative Back Bencher asked whether infrastructure should be put in place before major developments such as the Thames Gateway. The hon. Gentleman gave a rather curious answer. He seemed to suggest that we should hold up regeneration in the Thames Gateway area until such time as we have developed the transport infrastructure. I must point out that one of the most significant developments is going to be Crossrail. If we were to postpone development of the Thames Gateway area to wait for Crossrail, there would be significant suffering for people in that part of London. I suggest that he might want to reconsider the position that he adopted in his response to that intervention, because it certainly does not make any sense. I grant that it is desirable to put all transport infrastructure in place before development takes place, but if we were to postpone development until projects such as Crossrail were in place, we would be making a serious error and we would be perpetuating the suffering of a lot of people in the south-east who need that development. [Interruption.] Yes, they will also need the infrastructure.