Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:15 pm on 10 January 2018.
My Lords, the Centre for Cities, a think tank focused on the economic benefits and development of cities, has recently questioned the effectiveness of investment in roads as a catalyst for local economic development in the light of the evaluations that have been undertaken. It suggests that the evidence is far from conclusive and comments that other ways of investing money to reduce congestion could be more effective. Can the Minister say what evaluations of the impact of investment in local roads the Government are relying on to show that such investment does represent value for money in terms of reducing congestion and increasing productivity in local areas, as compared with other ways of investing the money to achieve the same objective? Will the Government make those evaluations, on which presumably they rely, publicly available, if they have not already done so?