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Local Government and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I do not pretend to be an expert, nor do I want to offer an opinion about that crossing, which I know has serious problems, but I do know that the two local authorities concerned and the elected Mayor approved the project. There was a conflict at that point, and perhaps those local authorities were not representative of the views of their communities; the hon. Gentleman clearly believes that to be the case. I was about to talk about Victorian values, because we should look back to the era of the railway developments of the 19th century. More miles of railway were developed in 50 years then than miles of motorway were built in the last 50 years of the 20th century, and the Secretary of State had nothing at all to do with it. This House did, however; railway Bills cluttered up the House's time in that era. The Secretary of State is currently too often the arbiter of major infrastructure projects, and saying that he or she is democratically accountable to this House is only a fig-leaf. Frequently, the lengthy preliminaries of reports and inquiries serve only to validate a decision that has already been taken. We will examine closely what the Government are now proposing. It is one thing to streamline the process, but it is another thing to ignore the evidence completely and override the clear wishes of the local community. I put the following point to the Secretary of State when the White Paper was first presented to the House: if there is to be an independent commission, it is important for it to be genuinely independent, so that it can contradict the intention of the Secretary of State, and if it does so, the Secretary of State will leave it at that. If not, it will simply be another link in a lengthy chain of decision making, and will not improve the situation one bit.