Lord Berkeley (Lab)

My Lords, I congratulate the Secretary of State and my noble friend on producing a comprehensive list of railway and road schemes they intend to go ahead with. This is the first time that we have seen such a list for years. In her introduction, the Secretary of State says that she is green-lighting over 50 rail and road projects. I am not sure whether green-lighting is all right, because occasionally greens go to orange and red, but I hope that is wrong. Within the text, there is quite a lot of uncertainty about which schemes are going ahead and which are what Ministers call “paused”. Pausing could happen for just a week or for a year. It would be useful, the next time Ministers do this, to spell out what pausing means. One of the schemes paused is the Dawlish scheme mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. I have an interest as I live down the other end. I am not suggesting the work should start now but, as my noble friend said, monitoring should continue because, if the cliff does come down—it could happen quite quickly if it does—it will put the south-west in a very difficult position. Could my noble friend, over the next week or two, publish a short paper giving the criteria used for going ahead with or pausing different schemes? It can apply to roads as well as to rail. We have had so much stop-start over the last few years, for reasons we need not go into. It would be nice to know what the reasons are. What are the criteria? Is it that there is a good business case, is it because the local MP knows the Minister very well, or is there some other good reason? I am sure there are good reasons for the decisions, but it would be helpful if Ministers could come up with that in the next few weeks. Otherwise, I congratulate the Minister on a good, comprehensive document.