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Road Users (Taxes and Charges)

May I begin by thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his comments about my service on the two Committees? I must say that it is not always easy to serve on both, given that both meet at 2.30 pm on the same day. The right hon. Gentleman is well aware of the situation in Leicester. We first crossed swords as members of Leicester city council and often found ourselves in agreement on issues relating to the well-being of the city, despite being on different sides, as we are now. Although I am not aware of the details of the scheme about which he talks, I can see many difficulties associated with such a scheme in a city such as Leicester—not least, in identifying which vehicles are to be penalised in the way suggested. I would also suggest that it would make very little impact on levels of congestion in a city such as Leicester or, indeed, any similar urban area. I was making the point that, like road pricing, further extensive road building is not a panacea. Predict and provide, of which some will be aware, is now, thankfully, a fashion long passed. It was an era in which engineers—it was mostly engineers making these predictions—in justification of often grandiose schemes, would predict a level of traffic and seek to provide the flyovers, motorways and other grandiose projects supposedly necessary to meet their predictions. Fortunately, we have moved on from that, and I am delighted that the Government no longer take the view that it is possible to predict levels of road traffic and to provide the roads necessary to accommodate them, only to see them fill up in a couple of years and for further schemes to have to come along behind them to meet the new levels of traffic. I was struck, when the Committee received its evidence on levels of congestion, by the fact that many of those seeking to argue for further road building did so on the basis of dubious methodology that costed congestion—costs that are inevitably very high—in a way that sought to justify additional spending on roads by setting it against those congestion costs. As I said, I found the methodology very dubious. It is based on the premise that if we build roads, we will reduce congestion, that if we reduce congestion, we will reduce journey times, and that if we reduce journey times, we will reduce the costs. Frankly, those conclusions do not follow from each other. In the real world, building extra roads does not necessarily reduce congestion; it does not necessarily reduce journey times; and it certainly does not necessarily reduce the costs. The evidence for that is not there; the evidence of our experience is that building roads leads to those roads filling up. The Committee received compelling evidence from Dr. David Metz, who has written a book entitled, "The Limits to Travel", which I read after hearing his evidence. I was enormously impressed by the arguments that he put to the Committee and in his book. They are based on some simple measures of how people behave. He demonstrated to the Committee, and very clearly in his book, that when journeys are made easier, in general people travel further. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it significantly undermines the argument that the way to deal with congestion is to build more roads, which is something that in fact leads to people travelling further. David Metz demonstrates in his book that, over the considerable periods of time during which he researched the issue, as well as in different sorts of societies in different places, the time spent on journeys remains remarkably constant. What happens when journeys are made easier is that people travel further. Therefore, rather than having evidence of the so-called costs of congestion that supports building additional roads, we actually have evidence that suggests that people will travel further and more often, making journeys that are, in the broadest sense, not necessary. The third set of points arising from the Committee's report that I want to address are ones on which I know that the Government are sympathetic, and concern the many ways in which better use can be made of our existing road network as an alternative to building more roads. I know that the Government are doing much on that, and no doubt in reply to this debate the Minister will draw attention to some of the things that the Government are doing already. Technology is increasingly available that enables roads to be used better and those driving vehicles to receive better information, whether on the roadside, in the cab, if they are driving a lorry, or through extensions of the information available through sat-nav technology. Finally on those points, I know that the Government are also sympathetic to continued investment in public transport as an alternative to investment in roads. That includes investment in freight on rail, to which I know the Minister is committed, investment in high-speed rail, on which we could have an announcement shortly, as the Chair of the Committee said, and, of course, continued investment in the conventional rail network. Exciting as high-speed rail will be, it will not provide solutions for the majority of those using the rail system, which is already heavily stretched in many areas. Also important, particularly in urban areas, is continued investment in quality bus services—not services that pack up at 6 pm and are unavailable in the evening, or which are unavailable on Sundays, but services that provide a genuine alternative to people who wish to avoid using a private car. I know that the Minister is sympathetic to this point and that he will agree with me, but we need quality public transport that not only provides a journey that people find comfortable, but is convenient and, above all, available at prices that make it attractive as an alternative to private cars and do not penalise those who want to avoid even more private car use and road building.