Thank you, Mr Efford. It is always a pleasure to see you in the chair. I congratulate my hon. Friend Jim Dickson on securing this debate on an issue which I am well aware is of great importance and interest to him and his constituents.

It is great to see quite a number of those constituents here today, to see other hon. Members, and to see very many people in the freight and logistics sector too, on whose behalf my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford has spoken with great passion. I would also like to thank him and other hon. Members here today for their engagement on this matter so far, including my hon. Friends the Members for Gravesham (Dr Sullivan), for Rochester and Strood (Lauren Edwards) and for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna). I know that they are working very hard on behalf of their constituents.

I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford has written to my Department several times on the issue of congestion at Dartford, as well as on progress on the application for a development consent order for the lower Thames crossing, a nationally significant infrastructure project connecting Essex, Thurrock and Kent.

The application for the lower Thames crossing development consent order was made under the Planning Act 2008 by National Highways, submitted to the planning inspectorate in October 2022, and accepted in November 2022. The appointed examining authority began its examination in June 2023 and concluded it in December 2023. The Secretary of State received the examining authority’s recommendation report on 20 March this year, with a statutory deadline of 20 June for a decision. Following a written Ministerial statement in May, the statutory deadline was extended to 4 October due to the general election. The deadline has since been further extended, to 23 May 2025, to allow more time for the application to be considered, including any decisions made as part of the spending review.

As with all nationally significant infrastructure projects, this is a complex scheme. There can be detailed matters that need to be worked through even after an examination has closed to ensure a legally robust decision is made. The Government recognise that transport infrastructure is vital for growth and acknowledge the critical role that roads play in our national transport system, facilitating the movement of people and goods that underpin the UK economy.