The three speeches/headings immediately before

1. 1 earlier: Peter Bone

   The Minister is giving a very good response, but may I pick up his point about money being provided by the Department for Transport? In Wellingborough, the Department is suggesting putting in a bus lane for about 60 yards, which will speed up buses by three seconds at a cost of £2 million. Local people say that that is nonsense, but unless the infrastructure is put in, all the rest of the Government funding will fall. That does not seem a very good way in which to approach the provision of local infrastructure.

2. 2 earlier: Sadiq Khan

   That is why the good planning departments work closely with developers to ensure that buildings are finished on time. Timelines are established so that buildings can be completed quickly.

   The hon. Gentleman is presumably alluding to the recession. We know that some developers have had problems and that, for very good reasons, the building of new estates may be delayed. In such circumstances, we would expect the developer and the council to work closely together to ensure that residents who have moved in are not disrupted, and that residents outside the development who use the roads are not inconvenienced by unadopted roads that are not up to scratch.

   Authorities will usually only adopt a street if it has been brought up to standard at the expense of the frontagers. As a result, an existing street may only be adopted if a majority of owners in that street agree. For obvious reasons, many authorities prefer to have 100 per cent agreement. If the householders are unable to pay, the Highways Act 1980 provides for the authority to agree to payment with interest over a number of years, or to place a charge on the property. Either approach means that an authority incurs expenditure on behalf of others that may not be recovered for many years, perhaps up to 20 to 30. The highway authority could, subject to decisions by its elected officers, agree to share the cost of bringing the highway up to standard.

   Decisions about whether to adopt streets and take on the cost of maintenance are local matters for local decisions, which will be based on the priorities within the authority's own programme of works. The hon. Gentleman, and my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North, may be interested to know that between 2008 and 2011 my Department is providing approximately £4 billion of capital funding to support local authority spending on small transport projects and highways maintenance, and around £2.3 billion on larger regional and local transport schemes. The local government settlement from the Department for Communities and Local Government distributes additional revenue funding to local authorities for transport purposes.

3. 3 earlier: Philip Hollobone

   The Minister is, of course, absolutely right, but the point about the section 106 agreements is that they can only be enforced on the completion of the development, and that may take five, 10 or 15 years.