Ruth Cadbury

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), given his deep experience and interesting perspective on bringing in tolls for all our motorways. That may be what happens in certain countries, but I suspect the whole funding of their road network is somewhat different from ours, so I will go back to focusing on the Bill. I have driven on roads in other countries, and across the bridge to Wales in the past, and it seems entirely natural to me for us to introduce a toll for the lower Thames crossing. It is parallel to the tolled Dartford crossing, and it is hardly going to be the first toll road in the UK. I welcome the Bill, which will enable the funding of the lower Thames crossing to be delivered and maintained through tunnel users paying to use it. It is the first time that a road project has used the RAB model—a model that is already used for energy, water infrastructure and Heathrow airport. Delivering improved transport infrastructure is core to this Government’s growth mission, so I am glad that the Government are exploring a range of both tried and tested and new methods of working with private sector investors to deliver projects. Those include using RAB for the roads for the first time—as in the Bill—as well as using the community infrastructure levy and further exploring the capture of land-value uplift on new rail schemes. Some of the early private finance initiative schemes in the mid and late ’90s gave public-private funding partnerships a bad name, but I am confident that the relationship between state commissioners and long-term private capital has matured in a way that can only be mutually beneficial. On the RAB model, however, I do have some concerns. While it provides confidence for investors and a rock-solid return—as the representative of potential investors in the lower Thames crossing told me—there is also a history of gold-plated, over-engineered schemes. Sometimes, as in the case of Heathrow airport, it can be poor value for money, as airlines and businesses that are captive tenants there tell me. All of Thames Water’s bill payers are funding the Thames Tideway tunnel—a project that provides no benefit to my constituency or the health of the River Thames in my constituency, as we are upstream of the intake of the Tideway tunnel. While there is a regulator in the Bill—the Office of Rail and Road plays an important role—I wonder, as I do with many regulators, whether it has sufficient teeth and funding. Does it have the right powers and sufficient powers over issues such as sustainability, safety, customer focus and local communities? To look again at the example of Heathrow airport, I fear that the Civil Aviation Authority is far too weak in areas other than its core responsibilities of the economy and, of course, air safety. There is one final issue with the lower Thames crossing that has been exercising both myself and the road haulage industry: the removal of any truck stop or motorway service area from the plans. The Transport Committee produced a report on this matter in 2022, when the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), who is now on the Opposition Front Bench, was on the Committee. Our conclusions showed the critical impact of the shortage of safe, secure driver facilities around the south-east, and particularly on routes to and from Dover. That message was repeated to the Transport Committee in March this year by the haulage industry and driver union representatives. Drivers are required to rest every 4.5 hours and need somewhere to stop and sleep in a place where they and their load are safe, yet we were told that at Medway and Thurrock services, on either side of the Thames, if a driver is not in the motorway service area by mid-afternoon, they would have to go and find an A road lay-by, meaning no toilets, no food and no safety.