Transport (Investment)

Louise Ellman Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her remarks. I know that the Nottingham tramway is not universally popular and that the workplace parking levy is even less so. However, if we are serious about a localism agenda, we will find that sometimes, perhaps often, the things that elected local authorities choose to do on behalf of local residents are not always in accordance with our own preferences and priorities. That is in the nature of localism, and I embrace it.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the positive parts of the statement, but there are major problems relating to the very important strategic schemes currently funded and identified through regional allocations. Does the Secretary of State agree with his statement to the Select Committee on Transport that structures wider than local economic partnerships would be necessary to examine such schemes in the future? Does he still maintain that this will bring more localism, given that we are told that future schemes of this nature will be funded partly through the regional growth fund and that decisions on that fund are to be taken entirely nationally?

[Mr Hammond]

I am glad that the hon. Lady has raised the issue of the regional growth fund. It is important to reiterate that that fund will be open to transport projects; they will be able to bid for funding from it. However, that is not in substitution for the very significant allocations that I have announced today—it is in addition. I hope that some of the smaller local authority schemes, in particular, may be worked up as bids to the regional growth fund.

The hon. Lady talks about local enterprise partnerships. As I said in my statement, my objective is to move to a system that more clearly allows local communities and local authorities to determine how the funding allocated to their area should be spent. The previous Government introduced the regional funding allocation system. The mechanisms through which that was intermediated are now to be abolished, along with the regional structure of government. What I said to the Select Committee and repeat today is that my Department will carefully examine the LEPs as they come into being. Of course they are a bottom-up structure, rather than a top-down one, so different LEPs will look different. We will need to see how they are organised and whether they are on a sufficiently strategic scale to be allocated transport funding individually or whether we might ask them to form strategic alliances with other LEPs as a basis for transport funding over relevant geographical areas.