Clause 48
Road Safety Bill [Lords]
5:15 pm
Owen Paterson (Shadow Minister, Transport; North Shropshire, Conservative)
That was an interesting intervention. I am delighted to see that the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) has joined us. We hope that the Liberal Democrat party had an enjoyable Easter as well.
We are not happy with the clause. The idea has been picked up from the continent. I was in France recently, looking at how the motorway system is run there. It is entirely different from the system here. The French have sold the lot; they have raised about €16 billion by selling off the right to maintain, manage and expand their motorway system for the next 50 or 60 years. The private companies have the finance and the staff to patrol and manage properly their rest areas.
That system is quite unlike ours. The measure would create substantial public expense; the Library said that it would cost £3 million to set up one of the proposed areas, and a further £300,000 for maintenance. We have doubts about whether it is wise to create areas that cannot be properly policed. If they do not have 24-hour CCTV coverage, the danger is that they will attract ne’er-do-wells, and they could rapidly become dangerous places at night. We should concentrate on improving existing services, as the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch, East (Rosemary McKenna) said.
There is also a disadvantage in creating too many exits and entries on our crowded motorways. We already have enough, and many traffic studies show that any exit or entry point creates traffic problems. Substantial amounts of traffic will be disrupted while the areas are built, and there will be yet more entry and exit points. We are also not at all convinced that without proper, 24-hour surveillance, such areas will work. They will need CCTV that operates all the time, and regular patrolling. If they are to have any refreshment facilities at all, they will become a sort of shadow area—possibly even worse than those with which the hon. Lady is unhappy—and they will be costly for the public purse. We do not want them to become attractive areas for rapists, thieves and burglars.
The answer is to improve existing motorway service areas. I entirely agree with the hon. Lady about that. Our suggestion, on which the Minister might like to comment, recognises the merit of allowing the existing service areas to have picnic areas. We already have entry and exit points, 24-hour CCTV coverage and private money available to staff.