Highways (Financing) Bill (Third sitting)

Shivani Raja Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Greg Smith]

I will start with amendment 78, which was tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage hit the nail on the head regarding why we tabled this amendment. We have come back to what I fear will be a familiar theme as we go through the clauses of this Bill in Committee: the openness, at times fuzziness, of the drafting, which leaves too much open to the imagination.

Ill-defined legislation that then gets caught up in the courts forever, with lawyers forever arguing over what was really meant, gives none of us, certainly none of our constituents, our local authorities or those areas of the country that have mayors—mine does not—the clarity that they need and want from this Bill. So amendment 78 really is a very clear and straightforward amendment. It was not tabled with any intent to undermine or derail the Bill, or push it off course, but to give the Government an opportunity to lock in something that gives clarity to the important institutions out there that we and our constituents rely on to deliver local services.

Local authorities and councils—in my case Buckinghamshire, which is also the highways authority covering my constituency—and in other parts of the country, mayors like the Mayor of London, where we are right now, and as per my earlier reference, the Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, should be locked into the process. I cannot see a single argument why the Government would not want that clarity in the Bill. If they have an in-principle opposition to that, there needs to be a very clear and compelling reason not to simply include the status quo of local authorities, mayors, mayoral combined authorities and the emergency services, as the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage said, in the Bill. I cannot see us moving away from a local authority and mayoral model, but in any future Government—we cannot predict changes—I am sure it will not be difficult to update the legislation to bring those authorities and institutions into effect.

[Shivani Raja (Leicester East) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if a proposed highway scheme touches an area or impacts local traffic nearby, the local authorities covering that ground need to be kept in the loop? The amendment simply ensures that local highway authorities, combined authorities and mayoral authorities get a copy of the notice right at the start. It ensures that local councils responsible for the surrounding roads are not left out of the loop so that they can plan for traffic and protect local roads for the local people.

[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, which goes to the heart of what we are talking about here: projects not on the strategic road network but that are important to local people—roads or indeed other forms of transport, as the Liberal Democrat spokesman spoke of—will be integral to getting traffic flows and people on to the new schemes that the Bill would enable. Not shutting out and turning our back on the other authorities that are part of the all-important jigsaw puzzle of our road network in its entirety, which feeds into and feeds off the lower Thames crossing or other schemes that the Bill would enable, surely has to be all important.

Highways (Financing) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Shivani Raja Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is right that there are measures in clause 11 that would address that issue, but we are currently discussing clauses 5 and 6, and the Minister’s comments reflected the fact that clause 6 only refers to extensions of a licence as opposed to reviews of a licence.

I cannot imagine that any of us, whatever walk of political life we find ourselves in at any one moment, would not want to have a statutory review period, so that all of us can question whether a contract is working as well as we want it to. Frankly, there are many projects I can think of that I wish we had had review periods for in the past, because we might have been able to pick up things that were going the wrong way.

If the Minister and the Government do not wish to have a five-year review period, I would welcome suggestions about what sort of review period would be acceptable to them. If they do not want a review period at all, there needs to be a pretty good case for that.

[Shivani Raja (Leicester East) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a compelling point. Once a company gets a road licence, it should not just be left to run it indefinitely, without any checks. A review every five years would force the regulator to consider the facts, including whether drivers are getting value for money and whether tolls are pushing extra traffic on to surrounding local streets. Publishing those findings would keep the operators accountable to the public.

[Greg Smith]

My hon. Friend makes the case incredibly well. This discussion is about transparency; it is about openness. It is about saying to those who in the future might receive a licence to run the lower Thames crossing or any other piece of road infrastructure that might be financed through this model that they are still accountable to the public and to the Government, be that the current Government or any future Government.

Such reviews will give us transparency and a clear light on what is going on, so that—to go back to the earlier debate today—any future schemes, which no one can name yet, that might be financed under the scheme created by the Bill could be improved upon by reviews of the operation of the lower Thames crossing in the future. Let us not put a date on when it will actually get built; every state project ends up being built more slowly than originally intended. But five years into the operation of the lower Thames crossing, why would all of us collectively—as parliamentarians or as the general public—not want to know how it was going?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Griffiths]

We are looking for clarity and making sure that our constituents are looked after in this process. At the moment, our constituents are left liable for whatever costs are coming down the track, with only the ORR’s code, which this place will have no say in, to set what those costs will be. Given that the Government do not wish to put in place a limit on the length of a licence, all these things concurrently are creating a situation where constituents, quite rightly, may be wondering what exactly it is that they are paying for.

[Shivani Raja]

We are generally in agreement that it is essential that both transparency and cost control sit at the heart of this framework. Drivers and local businesses deserve to know exactly what they are being asked to pay before any tolling arrangements are introduced. We cannot expect motorists to accept potentially significant and unexpected costs without first having a clear understanding of what those charges will be, and how they will be determined.

Amendment 72 is about ensuring proper scrutiny before decisions are made and effectively locked in. By requiring licence conditions and proposed toll levels to be published before the Act comes into effect, Parliament has the opportunity to examine the arrangements and understand the potential impact on roads users and motorists.

Ultimately, people deserve transparency, accountability and certainty. We must ensure that the interests of drivers and local businesses in all our constituencies are properly protected, and that no one is left facing unexpected costs without having had the opportunity to understand them.

[Justin Madders]

I thank the hon. Members for Mid Buckinghamshire and for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton for their amendment.

The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage tried to make a noble case for something that this Government are already dealing with through the record funding for highways maintenance that we have announced and are already delivering on. I understand the thrust of his argument about compensation to local highway authorities for displaced traffic. The right approach is to undertake an assessment of the whole strategic road network, to understand what improvements and likely increases to overall capacity could achieve more widely. Then, we should assess the impact if we do not proceed.

Of course, the whole thrust of the Bill is to reduce congestion, not increase it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford has said on many occasions, we know that his part of the country is already at bursting point. We know what happens when things go wrong at that vital section of the strategic road network. There are already local problems as people try to find alternatives to avoid the congestion it has caused. That is clearly not because people are trying to avoid the toll, which has been in place for many years; it is actually about the lack of reliability at that vital pinch point. The answer is not to compensate people for delays caused by trying to avoid that unreliability; the answer is to make the Dartford crossing more reliable so that people actively choose that road.

Highways (Financing) Bill (Second sitting)

Shivani Raja Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 29th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Tristan Osborne]

Q The recent independent regulatory review of the ORR included a section specifically about the Thames crossing. Paragraph 5.58 of that review indicated that there are resource concerns:

“There are, however, likely to be gaps such as those relating to construction phase price controls, project specific

I know you said that you had confidence in that area, but that report was published just last month. Can I get some clarity? Are you saying that the report is not entirely right and that you are confident that the three aspects it raised will be covered going forward?

Will Godfrey: We very much welcome that independent review of the ORR. It is always helpful to have that sort of outside-in look and scrutiny.

On what it describes as gaps, the other point that Dr Richard Judge brought out was that we are not building from scratch, so this is about providing incremental capacity. I think he was right to draw out those areas as ones where you would want to make sure that the gaps have been filled by the time you are past Royal Assent, the first licence has been awarded and you are into the start of the first price control, which is a long way from today. The point I am making is that, from the discussions I have been having with the Department, I am reasonably confident about being able to resource what I would describe as incremental gaps, rather than starting from a blank sheet.

[Shivani Raja (Leicester East) (Con)]

Q It has been really clear today that cost control is a crucial element in the success of this project. Should there be safeguards for motorists within the regulatory framework where, for example, unexpected charges arise or costs are excessive?

Will Godfrey: At the heart of the regulator’s responsibilities would be furthering the interests of current and future users. Those are exactly the kind of considerations that would be at the heart of how you approach the regulation, how you set up the instruments—I am referring specifically to the licence—and how you then hold the company to account against that licence.

For the first control period, in the case of the lower Thames crossing, the licence would be awarded by the Department, so the particular tolling structure and the level of tolls would be set through that competition for the first licence. Thereafter, the way that the ORR operates is that the code that the ORR would be responsible for creating on the approach to tolling arrangements will clearly be important once you are past that first point.

My feeling is that the arrangements necessary to provide protections to end users around, for example, tolling and toll shocks and so on feel about right to me in the enabling legislation. What is really important is what goes into the licence and what we put into the code, and then how the company responds. I hope there will be a virtuous circle, in which there is a clear signal of what is expected, we hold the company to account, it delivers and implements it, and we then take the feedback from the market. I do not know if you were anticipating a different concern, but I will pause there in case I have not answered your question.

[Shivani Raja]

No, that is fine. Do you have anything to add, Mr Palmer?

Matt Palmer: I think it is beyond my scope—National Highways is here as an operator and a constructor. I think Will has probably answered the question properly.

[Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)]

Q Matt, I think you have already answered my first couple of questions: the legal requirement on climate was set in 2022 in the original direct consent order, and the requirement to use alternative fuels to diesel is not a significant cost driver in a scheme of this scale. However, reflecting on a conversation that you and I have had previously, I was wondering about the cost impact, and the impact on the project generally, of delays caused by uncertainty of finance. Would a Bill like this enable future schemes to have certainty of financing arrangements, and therefore get on site and be delivered more quickly? Is that a fair assumption?

Matt Palmer: I think all of us recognise that annualised costs on major projects, especially mega-projects, are very difficult to deal with. They drive perverse cost behaviours, where you are trying to fit into a 12-month window, and the Government are currently moving, with the mega-projects piece, towards more of an envelope-type conversation. This is just another extension of that. You end up with a cost envelope that you are working within, with a driven timeframe that you have to deliver to, which then allows the flexibility to execute at the right time—depending on the weather and so on. It is that flex that you need in order to execute efficiently. If you are constraining yourself on cost to a budget every year, which is common, it does drive cost. This model gives you the flex that allows you to drive an efficient construction project.