Clause 17 - Arrangements for network management
Traffic Management Bill
2:30 pm
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
I shall speak to amendments No. 172 and 173. Amendment No. 172 seeks to make clause 17, at the top of page 8, monitor efficiency as well as effectiveness. It is not just
a question of doing what the Bill says at any price. There are still some people in this country who believe that throwing money at a problem will improve things. I do not share that view, and perhaps the Minister agrees with me.
However, we need to have regard to the people who ultimately pay the bill, namely council tax payers, motorists and everybody else. It seems, therefore, that as well as monitoring the effectiveness of the scheme, it is crucial to ask whether we are getting value for money and whether a sensible amount is being paid, because there will always be competing priorities. While the issues are very important, they are not the only issues concerning road safety, transport generally or the country as a whole. They have to be seen in the context of competing priorities and in the sensible use of money that is allocated to such jobs. For that reason, I hope that the Minister will have some sympathy with the point being made, even if he does not like the wording of our amendment. I hope that he will be able to say that the Government accept that efficiency is important and that they will find a way of ensuring that not only effectiveness but a sense of efficiency will be provided for.
If amendments Nos. 172 and 173 were accepted, we would have the means to monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of, among other things, the performance of the authority's traffic manager. You were not here this morning, Miss Begg, when we had a minor discussion about giving traffic managers five-year contracts so that one could decide whether they had done a good job before reappointing them at the end of that period. The Government did not much like that, but I hope that they will at least accept that there is a need to monitor the boss's work very closely. I hope that I can persuade the Minister to include monitoring of the traffic manager's performance as a second best. Sometimes, the Opposition must settle for second best or even less than that. We did not win the argument this morning, and the Minister may not like the wording of the amendment, but I hope at least to persuade him to accept the principle of making some reference to monitoring the performance of a person who has been appointed to a designated job under the Bill.