Lord Moylan (Con)

My Lords, I am beginning to feel slightly left out. I have not been the beneficiary of a large amount of correspondence from the Minister in the way other noble Lords scattered around the Chamber appear to have been. I do not have the advantage of his support and the wording that he might have supplied to help me make my speech. I was very interested in the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and I look forward to hearing the Government’s response to them. I also had a great deal of sympathy with the remarks made by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. I will just pause for a personal recollection about the Highway Code. Back in, I think, 1973 or 1974, I was part of the team representing my school, which was triumphant in the West Midlands competition on mastery of the Highway Code. It was a sort of quiz and we had to train for it, but it was sponsored by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. To this day, I still have a very detailed recollection of the contents of the Highway Code as it stood in 1974. The most devastating consequence of this afternoon’s debate is that I have learned only today, from my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, that it has become a very much larger document and that it is available only online. I have been living by the 1974 version very satisfactorily ever since. But my noble friend makes a very serious point and she illustrates a degree of confusion and delay on the part of the Government. The uninsured losses that have been accumulating in the motor insurance system have fallen to the expense of responsible motorists, who pay their insurance. They are paying for all these uninsured losses and the Government will have to deal with that. If the Minister is not in a position to do so today, I agree with my noble friend that the Government will need to return to it urgently—certainly in the next parliamentary Session. I do not object to the government amendments on pavement parking; I broadly welcome them. I find most attractive that they very properly make it a local decision, including on the exemptions required. It is very unlikely that there will be a blanket ban on pavement parking in any part of the country—there will have to be some exemptions in certain areas—but these matters should be decided locally and sensitively in consultation with residents. That brings me to my Amendments 104 and 105, where I am motivated by a similar consideration of the sensitivities of local residents. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for indicating his support for these two amendments. Through this Bill, the Government are creating a key route network that I imagine is not unlike the red route network in London, but applied to other great conurbations. Unfortunately, there is no restriction on the roads in which that network could be created. The purpose of my amendment, which we debated in Committee, is to prevent that network being created on residential and minor roads, in essence. The way that I have done that—and it is a slightly rough measure—is to confine the key route network to “classified numbered roads carrying strategic motor traffic”. I realise that some of those roads may also be residential in character, but at least they are major roads at the moment, so the residents know where they stand. People need to be protected from the thought that their possibly quiet residential road could become an extension to an urban motorway, with very little say on their own part. The purpose here is to protect those people, and I think the Government could easily agree to this, because it is most unlikely that they would want those consequences to arise, and this would be a way of protecting from them. I give the Minister notice that, unless he is very accommodating on this point, I will test the opinion of the House. Finally, my Amendment 103—again debated in Committee—would leave out Clause 27. The history of this clause is that, when the Greater London Authority was created, the Mayor of London was given the power to dispose of non-operational land belonging to TfL, but only with the approval of the Secretary of State. There would have to be permission from the Secretary of State before the disposal should take place. The effect of the Bill is to remove that requirement and to leave it entirely to the Mayor of London. I emphasise that the comments I am making have no relationship to the current, or any other, incumbent. The remarks I am making arise because, since the Greater London Authority Act was passed, the mayor has had housing responsibilities added to his portfolio. Those responsibilities did not exist in 1999; I think it was the Localism Act 2011 that added them, but it was around that time that housing responsibilities were added. There is now, irrespective of the personality of the incumbent, an institutional conflict built into the mayoralty about the best use of land under his disposal: would it be for transport purposes or housing purposes? Depending on the political pressures on him at a particular time, poor judgment might be exercised in deciding on the disposal of that land. The effect of my amendment in removing Clause 27 would be simply to maintain the status quo: the mayor may order to TfL to, or may on behalf of TfL, dispose of TfL land, as currently, but he would require, as currently, the approval of the Secretary of State. That is an important point for ensuring the proper integrity and responsibility over any decisions to do with the disposal of land given the potentially conflicting roles that the Mayor of London has in this regard. I think this has been a very useful debate, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, since, at least in my case, it will be for the first time.