Olly Glover

Not all French motorways are tolled. Certain sections of them are—often the busiest sections. I will come to what the right hon. Gentleman said about what the Bill does and does not do. The Liberal Democrats’ position is that there needs to be close attention to the detail and scrutiny of the way in which charges and tolls—like those in Europe and on the M6, which I mentioned—are implemented. However, the Bill leaves all of those questions of operation, management, oversight and regulation of tolls and charges largely undefined; they are often relegated to secondary legislation. The Government must ensure that road users are not held to ransom by licence holders, who must be properly regulated. We have seen disastrous effects in other sectors when these things have been got wrong. The Minister and the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mike Reader) gave good examples of how a regulated asset base approach, and indeed private finance initiatives, can be used for good, but of course there are many bad examples as well. I am not sure whether too many people believe that the water industry’s use of the regulated asset base approach has been enormously successful. We certainly need regulation of private investors and to ensure that the triggers for the special administration regime defined in the legislation are not too weak. Of course, there are also many examples of public private partnerships and private finance initiatives that have not ended well, particularly with hospitals and the London underground.