Transport (Investment)

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman says that, but it runs through his constituency; there is no pleasing some people. The ring road showed a much higher return per pound of taxpayers’ money spent than did the A453 scheme. However, the A453 scheme is in the development pool and we will continue to work on it. As the hon. Lady will know, the scheme has some powerful advocates who regularly make the case for it to me.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I applaud the criteria by which the Secretary of State has chosen to decide which projects should go ahead, but on the basis of sustainability, affordability, economic growth, cutting congestion and, I add, road safety, for what reason has the A1 Leeming to Barton project been cancelled? It was widely expected that it would go ahead to increase road safety, reduce road deaths and increase economic growth, and it is a major national road artery.

[Mr Hammond]

Decisions on the cancellation of Highways Agency schemes were made after very careful analysis of the business cases and a realistic appraisal of the likely envelope of funding not only in this spending review period but in the next one and the one beyond. It would be very easy to stand here and say that nothing is cancelled, but I do not want to encourage further spending on schemes that have no realistic prospect of going forward within the next 10 years, as that money could be spent on live schemes and getting work done rather than on people sitting in Highways Agency offices designing and redesigning schemes that will never happen. We have had to take some tough decisions, but I am quite confident that we have taken the right ones.