Lewis Cocking

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. There is a problem with a highway authority issuing permits. There is also a problem when utility companies use emergency legislation, where they do not even have to notify the highway authority of the works taking place. Residents can wake up, get in their car to go to work or school, drive to the end of their road and see the road being dug up, without any communication having been made with them. We need to take a two-pronged approach. I am happy to support my right hon. Friend’s ten-minute rule Bill, to tighten up some of the regulation on this. We need to ensure that highway authorities are responsible when they issue permits. We also need to ensure that, when utility companies use that emergency legislation, they get someone working on site as quickly as possible to get that emergency fixed. Do not dig up a road, under claims of an emergency, put traffic lights in place and then allow our constituents to sit in traffic for hours on end while no one works on that site. I am pleased to support my right hon. Friend and his Bill, which will include increasing the fixed-penalty notices for utility companies whose roadworks overrun, which is another important issue. As I have said, the threat of financial penalties for those undertaking these works can make a difference, so penalties for work that overruns should be increased in line with inflation, especially for regular offenders. I have said before that sometimes when the same stretch of road is dug up, it is dug up by different utilities. If those utilities worked together, it would save them money. It is absolutely extraordinary—and there are examples of this in my constituency—that the same utility company digs up the same stretch of road, virtually at the same point, just a couple of weeks after they finished digging it up. They really need to forward-plan and look at how they do such work. These changes, along with lots of others, would bring down costs for consumers, so that we could spend our money where we want to in the economy and get to work or school on time. I hope that the Government will listen and take the side of my constituents and many ordinary working people across the country.