Clause 22 - Appointment of traffic director: supplementary
Traffic Management Bill
4:00 pm
Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Harrow East, Labour)
As regards amendment No. 183, perhaps the Committee could also take it as read that I repeat what I said earlier. Let me add, however, that I would be horrified if any traffic director was in place for a year, let alone five years.
That touches on amendment No. 107. As I said earlier, we envisage intervention orders outlining the particulars, objectives, general powers and exit strategy for the intervention. The process might take a month, but if it took six months and two weeks, the amendment would require the entire rigmarole set out in clauses 20 and 21 to be gone through again.
Intervention is meant to be sharply focused, with clear time limits and exit strategies, so that local authorities can, as we all want them to, carry out their network management duty by themselves, on their own terms and in their own fashion, with no intervention from central Government. I do not see what would be achieved by going through the whole process set out in clauses 20 and 21 every six months. That would go against the grain of quick, light-touch intervention.