15 Jun 2004

 3.13 pm

Shona McIsaac (Cleethorpes) (Lab): I am pleased to be able to take part in this debate. I am going to focus not on things that happened pre-1997 but on the many things that have happened subsequently, and on policies for which the Government deserve praise. I have certain constituency concerns, however, that I also want to raise.

The Conservatives seem to suggest that nothing has been done since 1997, but that is a caricature of the Government's transport policy, particularly in regard to roads. The Opposition give the impression that virtually no road schemes have been completed since 1997, but that is simply not the case. Many major and minor road schemes and road safety schemes have been completed since then. In my area, the Newark to Lincoln dual carriageway was completed last year, which has added to the speeding up of traffic in that area and got rid of a notorious bottleneck on one of the major link roads to the A1 from places such as Grimsby and Cleethorpes.

The Conservatives have caricatured the Government's transport policy as a failed one, which is simply not the case. That is not to say, however, that everything is perfect, because it is not. The Secretary of State admitted that there were great difficulties involved in dealing with the major infrastructure projects. I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) is not present today. My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Lawrie Quinn) alluded to her whistlestop tour of the Yorkshire and Humber region, during which she also visited Immingham in my constituency to drum up support for her party. The Conservatives topped the polls in Immingham a year ago, but the effect of her recent visit was that they came last in that electoral ward, with their vote collapsing by about a third. She is therefore more than welcome to visit my constituency any time she likes, if that is the effect that she is going to have on the Conservative vote there.

The words of the motion on the Order Paper, and the comments of Conservative Members today, are simply whinge, whinge, whinge. There does not seem to be any policy behind them for us to get our teeth into, so that we can see what the Conservatives are offering. It is not sufficient simply to criticise; they must offer credible alternatives. From what I have heard today, however, they did not seem to have any credible policies. The only certainty was that, according to the shadow Chancellor, there would be cuts in their transport budget. That would be particularly worrying to my constituents, because one of the major projects to be affected by such cuts would be the Government's commitment in the 10-year transport plan to resurface all concrete trunk roads with low-noise material.

The A180 in northern Lincolnshire is a concrete trunk road and a major link between the ports of Grimsby and Immingham. Immingham is a rapidly expanding port that deals with most of the freight coming into Britain from the Netherlands. That road is therefore heavily used; it also has many residents living alongside it. When the Government's resurfacing policy was announced in July 2000, my constituents were therefore very pleased. However, projects such as that would be put in jeopardy if the Conservatives' proposals for cuts—or a freeze; let them call it what they will—went ahead. Such a freeze would mean that my constituents would have no chance of getting that low-noise material on a road that carries a lot of freight traffic.

That is not to say that freight does not also go by rail. I want to point out to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), that much of the freight that comes into Immingham goes on from there by rail—it is one of Britain's major rail freight depots—but there are capacity issues in regard to the track leading from Immingham that feeds into the east coast main line. Much of that track is also in poor condition, and those issues need to be looked at. 
 
 Today, when we have talked about rail, we have mainly referred to passenger transport. In my constituency, freight transport is the big issue. Most of the rail jobs are related to that, and it generates economic growth in the area. We must consider the freight infrastructure as much as we do other aspects of the transport infrastructure.

I referred to the A180 resurfacing programme, and my hon. Friend the Minister knows that subject well, as I have raised it in the Adjournment debate and with other Transport Ministers. I hope that Ministers can get to grips with the Highways Agency, because its timetabling of some of these projects seems at times to get a little woolly, to put it politely. It commits to one day, then to another. Last year, I received a letter from the agency telling me that the project was due to go ahead in 2001, and my constituents were certainly a little confused that a project that was going to go ahead two years earlier had not yet started. Let us get to grips with the Highways Agency, make sure that it spells towns' names correctly—every time that I write to it about the Habrough to Stallingborough section, I get a response connected to Harborough. I have not yet taken over the Harborough constituency, but I am sure that that leads to some of the woolly thought in this area.

The other subject on which I wanted to touch briefly—not many other people have alluded to it—is the place of bridges within our transport network. I will refer particularly to the Humber bridge connecting my constituency with Hull on the north bank of the river. Ever since the bridge was built, there has been concern about the level of debt, and the money that must be paid to the Treasury to finance it. I praise the Government, who in 1998 wrote off £62 million of that debt, and rescheduled the remaining debt to make the interest repayments more manageable. However, those tolls can still be a barrier. Because of the reorganisation of health care in the area, many more people must travel over to the north bank of the river for treatment, and must therefore incur tolls. Responsibility for giving concessions lies with the strategic health authority and other partners.

As I have also raised this issue in Adjournment debates, could the Government re-examine the remaining debt on the bridge? They have written off debt previously, rescheduled the remaining debt and reduced the interest rates, and for us to remove the barrier to further economic growth in what is one of Britain's major industrial manufacturing heartlands, we need to consider that. If my hon. Friend the Minister could assist the bridge board with removing that barrier to economic growth, we would appreciate it. If he will not do that, may I suggest that some of the £15 million that toll payers in my area pay into the Treasury each year could go towards finishing off the A180 resurfacing project?