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Transport: Investment

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I would like to repeat the Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State in another place. ““With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the Government’s investment plans for our transport networks. During the course of my remarks, honourable Members may find it helpful to refer to the documents that I have placed in the Library of the House and the Vote Office this afternoon. As my right honourable friend the Chancellor explained last week, the decisions that we have taken to cut waste, end lower-priority programmes and reform the welfare system allow us to invest in Britain’s long-term economic growth and to prioritise transport infrastructure to support economic growth. We have already announced a green light for Crossrail and Tube upgrades, as well as plans for investment in low-carbon vehicles and recharging infrastructure and to take forward work on a high-speed rail network. Work is continuing on evaluation of additional investment in major rail projects and I expect to be in a position to make an announcement to the House in the next few weeks. Today I can confirm a programme of investment in our crucial strategic road network, managed by the Highways Agency, and in our local transport networks. We will continue to invest in capital maintenance, spending over £5.9 billion over the next four years on unglamorous but important works to maintain the integrity of the network, both strategic and local. We have also allocated over £180 million over the four-year period for high-value minor enhancements to the strategic road network. We are taking action to reduce the cost of proposed Highways Agency schemes by respecifying, renegotiating with suppliers and improving governance and control. Thanks to these decisions, I can confirm that funds will be available for sustainable upgrades to the strategic network to tackle congestion hot spots, delivering networkwide benefits that provide very high returns on investment. I can confirm today that the eight Highways Agency major schemes currently under way will be funded to completion and opened to the public in the next two years and I can announce funding for 14 new projects to commence on site by April 2015, including the schemes announced by my right honourable friend the Chancellor last week. These are: the A11 Fiveways dualling; the M4 and M5 junction north of Bristol; the M6 between junctions 5 and 8 in Birmingham; the M62 between junctions 25 and 30 near Leeds; three schemes on the M1 between Derbyshire and Wakefield, from junctions 28 to 31, 32 to 35a and 39 to 42; four schemes near Manchester, from junctions 8 to 12 and from 12 to 15 on the M60, junctions 18 to 20 on the M62, and from Knutsford to Bowden on the A556; improvement of the A23 between Handcross and Warninglid; and the completion of the upgrading of the M25, with a managed motorway scheme for peak-time hard-shoulder running between junctions 23 and 27 and junctions 5 and 7. These essential investments will cut congestion, improve journey times and, most importantly, support economic growth. Every pound that we spend on these schemes will generate, on average, £6 of benefits. I can also confirm that work will continue on developing a further set of Highways Agency schemes, ready to start in the next spending review period if funds become available. A detailed list is included in the documents to which I referred earlier. There is one last group of four current Highways Agency schemes that will be reviewed to see if they still represent value for money and can be progressed for the next spending review period. As important as strategic roads are to the national economy, many of the highest value-for-money proposals are those that address the needs of the local road and public transport infrastructure that supports the economies of our cities, towns and rural areas. That is why last week we announced our commitment to completing major local projects worth over £600 million, including measures to improve access to Weymouth in time for the Olympics and acceleration of the work on the Tees Valley bus network, as well as confirming our intention to invest up to £350 million to complete the upgrade of the Tyne and Wear Metro. We also announced our intention to proceed with PFI schemes to extend the Nottingham tram network and deliver sustained improvements in highways maintenance in Sheffield, Hounslow and the Isle of Wight. My department will work urgently with the four local authorities concerned to ensure that we can deliver these schemes within the funding available. My right honourable friend the Chancellor also announced last week that we will invest more than £900 million over the next four years on new local authority major schemes. They will include: a new bridge over the Mersey at Runcorn, partly funded by tolls; improving access to Leeds station; and extending the Midland Metro tram line from Snow Hill to New Street through Birmingham city centre. I can confirm today that a further seven major local authority projects have also been given the green light, subject to planning and other approvals. They are: a new bus interchange and associated transport improvements in Mansfield; a new bypass that will take traffic away from communities in Sefton; an integrated package of sustainable transport improvements in Ipswich; major improvements to the M5 at junction 29, east of Exeter, providing access to new housing and employment areas; a bypass to the north of Lancaster, improving connections between the port of Heysham and the M6; improvements on the A57 east of junction 31 on the M1 near Todwick; and a new northern distributor road in Taunton to provide additional cross-town capacity and access to areas of brownfield land. These schemes, worth about £300 million in total, have been selected from a pool of projects with proven business cases. They are listed as ‘supported’ schemes and are shaded in green in the list that I referred to earlier. But our duty is to ensure that every pound spent is essential. Even with these priority schemes, I expect local authority promoters to work with my department to ensure that every opportunity for cost saving has been taken and every source of alternative contributions fully explored before funding is confirmed in January next year. While the House will welcome these decisions, Members on all sides will want to know how we are proposing to handle the remaining schemes. The £600 million-plus remaining for additional new projects after the announcements already made demonstrates the importance that we attach to local authority major schemes, but it will not be enough to fund all the schemes proposed by local authorities. I have therefore placed in the Library a list of all currently submitted schemes, including three schemes which previously had conditional approval and which we will now seek to progress to full approval, showing how we propose to categorise them. For 22 schemes where my department has completed a value-for-money assessment in the past four years, we will invite best and final funding bids from this ‘development pool’—the schemes shaded in amber in the list. Promoters will be challenged by my department to consider the scope of a scheme, its cost, lower-cost alternatives and their ability to contribute more locally. Those who can make the best case are the most likely to receive funding, which will be confirmed by the end of 2011. Further analysis will be carried out on another 34 schemes for which the department does not currently have an up-to-date assessment to determine whether they can go forward to join the development pool and bid for a share of the £600 million-plus funds available. These schemes are shaded blue on the list; a decision will be made by January 2011. This competitive process will ensure that the greatest possible number of schemes, offering the best value for money, is able to proceed, facilitating economic growth and providing jobs across the country. Under regional funding allocations, regional and local bodies were encouraged to identify a large number of schemes for longer-term prioritisation, many of which were in very early stages of development with no business cases submitted to the Department for Transport. In the longer term, I want decisions on local transport priorities such as these to be taken out of Whitehall and placed in the hands of local people. My department will work with the emerging local enterprise partnerships and local authorities to identify the best approach to local decision-making on future transport priorities. I have set out today the decisions that we have made and what they mean for our strategic and local transport networks. The measures that I have described will help to deliver long-term, sustainable and affordable economic growth in this country. The difficult choices that this Government have made have allowed us to invest in the future and I commend this Statement to the House””. My Lords, that concludes the Statement.