Jim Dickson

My constituents will be delighted to see this piece of legislation before the House. It is, as others have said, key to unlocking new infrastructure and finally ending the traffic chaos that plagues my Dartford constituency daily. The new lower Thames crossing is planned to be the first new road project funded in this way. The Dartford crossing and the M25 motorway, which along with the A282 provides access to the crossing, cut across the heart of my constituency, providing, as has been said by others, the one crossing over the Thames east of London. This represents a single point of failure, and fail it often does. The Dartford crossing was designed for 135,000 vehicles a day, but as the Minister has said, the crossing now averages 150,000 vehicles a day and needs to be carefully managed around the clock. When failure happens, it is the residents of Dartford who pay the highest price. When the crossing has to close, which happens regularly, it leaves the town at a complete standstill. Journeys that should take 10 minutes can take four to five hours. Children cannot get home from school, tradespeople cannot get to jobs, and medical appointments are missed. Dartford residents have been waiting for years for this to be addressed. Earlier this year, on 23 January, an over-height lorry somehow evaded the sensors designed to detect and halt such vehicles and caused significant damage to the roof of one of the tunnels, leading to a closure of more than 30 hours and absolute chaos for residents on both sides of the crossing, as traffic backed up for miles around. Even when there is not a major issue such as a tunnel closure, most days see heavy traffic. For those heading northbound in the evening, 95% of journeys feature delays, with two thirds taking twice as long as they should. The high amount of slow-moving traffic also has health impacts on Dartford residents, with air quality far below what we should expect. For our country more widely, delays at the crossing affect goods coming to and from ports in the south-east, and the delays are estimated to cost the UK more than £200 million every year in time lost sitting in traffic. It is therefore incredibly welcome that the building of the lower Thames crossing is now proceeding rapidly forward after moving slower than traffic over the Dartford crossing on a bad day under the last Government. We now see a reasoned amendment to the Bill, which would decline to give it a Second Reading, because the Conservatives do not believe the Government can deliver it on time. That is quite some accusation given their record of—how can I put this kindly—glacial progress on the project. Their 14 years of dither and delay are followed by an active attempt to block progress today. That will go down really well in Dartford, and I have no doubt that Dartford Conservatives will be ecstatic at the antics of their colleagues in the House today. The new crossing, when finished, will take away more than 10 million vehicles from Dartford, freeing up almost a full lane of traffic. It will be hugely beneficial for the local economy. Thousands of jobs will be created during construction, with half the workforce recruited locally. I hope that that will kick-start a whole generation of new careers in construction for young people across north Kent and Essex. Once built, the new road will increase access to jobs for those living on both sides of the Thames, providing crucial employment opportunities for my constituents and others living nearby. The campaign to get this piece of infrastructure up and running has been the single biggest priority in my time as Dartford’s MP. I welcome the Bill as a crucial step forward in getting the crossing built and open. I send my thanks to residents, businesses large and small, organisations across Dartford and north Kent, national trade bodies including Logistics UK, local government representatives and colleagues across this House and in the other place for their support with the campaign. I also thank the Secretary of State for Transport and Treasury Ministers, including the previous and present Chancellors, for the planning and funding decisions that they have made. I appreciate the time the Roads Minister took to discuss the project in the summer and hope that he will indulge me by answering just a few outstanding queries that I have about the operation of the Bill and its impact on the new crossing. Most importantly, on tolls, local residents in Dartford and Thurrock are entitled to discounted use of the Dartford crossing. Will the Minister clarify whether the Bill has any impact on the operation of a future residents’ discount scheme for both the Dartford crossing and the new crossing? It is crucial for my residents that the tolls across the two crossings are set at an equal value and remain affordable via the discount scheme. I would be grateful for any assurance that the Minister can provide on that issue. The arrangement clearly will not work if there is a financial incentive for goods vehicles to use one crossing rather than the other. It is important to recognise that, at its core, the Bill allows private companies that are licensed by the Government to charge tolls on newly built roads—the mechanism by which we unlock capital to build much-needed new infrastructure. British motorists already pay substantial revenue to the Government through fuel and vehicle excise duties, so does the Minister agree that although it is right to use tolls on new infrastructure in certain circumstances such as this, we do not want to see new toll roads created on currently untolled highways? I am sure that the Minister will give us reassurance on that. I have some concerns about the vulnerabilities highlighted by the Government’s final stage impact assessment with the Office of Rail and Road, which has been appointed as the independent regulator. How will Ministers address the concerns that have been raised about information asymmetry, such as the concern that in some cases, private firms bidding for and then building and operating the development may possess more detailed information about actual project delivery and operational costs than the ORR, which might allow them to inflate costs, with knock-on inflation in the charges that users will eventually pay? Some reassurance on that would be useful. Notwithstanding those queries, which I am sure the Minister will answer, I am happy to support this very welcome Bill. I know that it is widely welcomed as the key to unlocking the critical funding needed to build such a vital piece of new infrastructure.