On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. With all due respect to you, Mr. Speaker, and acknowledging that London is a marvellous place, of the eight speakers called during the debate on the guillotine motion, including a Minister and a Front Bench Opposition spokesman, five were London Members and not one Member was called from a constituency which is part of a metropolitan county. With respect, Mr. Speaker, I ask you to acknowledge that millions live in the metropolitan counties that are affected by the Bill.

I am well aware of that. Unfortunately, there was only an hour's debate on the guillotine motion.

The hon. Gentleman quoted figures of employees of the GLC and went on to say that there will be no democratic representation. Will he confirm that the figures included the entire work force and staff of ILEA? Under the Bill, the members of ILEA will be democratically elected. Therefore, the hon Gentleman is talking nonsense.

I concede that the right hon. Gentleman is correct in saying that those who work for the ILEA will be controlled by a directly elected body. Why does the same principle not apply to every other county function that is being preserved as a result of the amendments made largely in another place under pressure from the Opposition? What is good for the ILEA and for countrywide local government at the moment should obtain in the future. Government supporters have the chance to vote for Opposition amendments, which would enable that democratic structure to be preserved. Otherwise, we shall simply have a distortion of local democracy. The main burden of our amendments is to give a democratic accountability to those functions which will continue not on a district or a borough basis, but on a countywide basis.

The second main purpose of the amendments is to recognise the reality of planning our conurbations, and to give each metropolitan county a joint planning commission, which would be elected. One cannot plan a road system from one borough to another. One has to deal with land use on a conurbation basis. A magnificent change has taken place in the nature of south London as a result of the GLC financing over many years on a countywide basis, for example, with the creation of Burgess park. Much of south London was too densely populated and people were living with no green around them at all.

It is impossible to have such a planning function simply on a borough basis. On such a basis, it is impossible to plan the skyline around our cities, planning that is very important both in London and parts of Yorkshire, where, without adequate planning, it is possible to destroy the skyline.

The argument for planning our conurbations on a conurbationwide basis is made out in the Government's proposals on inner cities. The Government do not treat inner city policy as a subject merely for one borough or another. They recently set up, with a flourish from the Prime Minister, an organisation called City Action Teams, or CATs for short. As the Association of Metropolitan Authorities observed, what the country needs is not cats, but mice—more inner city expenditure.

At any rate, when looking at the problems of the inner city, the Government did not choose to do so from borough to borough or district to district. They took a strategic overall view, and said that Government Departments and local authorities must come together to take a strategic view of the inner city. The inner city should be planned in that way. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) said, we shall repeal the Bill at the earliest opportunity. The further the Bill gets in its passage, the nearer the opportunity will come for a Labour Government to undertake that task.

In the meantime, the amendments amount to no more than interim measures. They at least restore to planning some democratic accountability and sense. For that reason alone, I ask hon. Members on both sides of the House to support our amendments.

I wish to speak to amendment (b)

"to the words so restored to the Bill":—

Page 3, line 12, leave out from 'London' to end of line 15 and insert

'Authority, and the functions of the London Authority in respect of planning matters'.

The Government made some concessions in the other place to various aspects of the Bill, but from the point of view of those in all parties who have opposed the Bill all the way through, and regarded it as a sad piece of legislation, to say the least, that has not been sufficient to repair the damage that is contained in many parts of the Bill. In the other place the Government lost some crucial amendments on significant occasions, but it was not enough to persuade them to depart from the central and still extremely unwelcome aspects of the Bill's structure.

Amendment (b) deals only with aspects to do with London, but later amendments incorporate the metropolitan counties. At this late stage it is worth remembering that my hon. Friends and colleagues in all parts of the House still have an opportunity to do some useful repair work to the Bill's structure. The confusion and chaos in the original text has to some extent been made worse by the Government's concessions in an attempt to achieve a more rational structure. Despite their Lordships' interesting and heroic efforts—I pay particular tribute to Lord Plummer for his amendments — the position is more difficult than previously.

With this amendment my colleagues and I suggest a significant adjustment to help the Government produce a much better structure. We do not seek to push them too far, or oblige them to depart from their original manifesto commitment, which is adhered to in the Bill. In some respects our arguments, fortuitously and felicitously, coincide with those of the Opposition Front Bench, but they are significantly and interestingly different. The substantial effect of the amendment is to put London's strategic planning, highways and traffic control, waste disposal and the important but often forgotten citywide research services into one directly elected London authority.

Thus, we return to the theme of the body being directly elected. The body is not to be compared in any way with the existing Greater London council. It has no relationship to it and is wholly different. It would be a small body, which would meet the Government's objectives of saving costs, and would have the opposite effect to the present one. The Coopers and Lybrand report shows beyond all doubt that the whole exercise will cost a one-off £170 million. That may be the top end of its range of estimates of the extra cost.

The amendment would transform the residuary body — which was supposed to be a marginal tidying-up body, but which has acquired more and more functions, which the Government's planners could not put elsewhere, as the text became more problematic—into a London authority. The amendment would also provide, together with related later amendments, that the London authority should nominate members of the London residuary body, instead of the Secretary of State.

In the other place successful amendments transferred parts of highways and traffic to the London residuary body. As has already been said, the boroughs end up with only a small minority of the total activities and expenditure in gross terms, contrary to the original intentions of both the manifesto and the Secretary of State. Although my hon. Friends and I believe that the decentralisation proposed for the boroughs in the change for the residuary body is right, it is not appropriate to move the remaining overall Londonwide highways and traffic functions to a temporary nominated quango, such as the London residuary body or a joint board.

The amendment is valuable in that it deals with direct elections, and immediately and specifically makes possible the co-ordination of those four important citywide services—planning, highways and traffic control, waste disposal and the research unit — into one London authority. Obviously, we want the authority to be directly elected because its powers and expenditure will be substantial, and it should be accountable to the ratepayers who will have to pay for its functions. We in this House and the other place will anyway have to return to the question of direct elections in separate legislation in due course.

As the Secretary of State has often reminded us, the Conservative party election manifesto promised to abolish the GLC on the grounds that it was a wasteful body and an unnecessary tier of government. Those arguments have been rendered otiose by the passage of the Bill and the detailed examination of all the arguments for and against it. We shall be left with a yawning gap and major lacuna in London local government, unless this admittedly late-in-the-day adjustment is made.

At the end of the Bill's passage — the Government will no doubt have a chance to refer to this later—there is little talk in official circles about saving large sums through abolition. All the evidence suggests that Londoners will face heavy one-off bills, and annually recurring bills for these regrettable changes. I do not exaggerate when I say that this is a tragic piece of legislation in every respect.

5.15 pm

The Londonwide tier of government will remain in a structural sense because the GLC's services have been distributed among various quangos, joint boards and joint committees, most of which will be under close ministerial supervision. Instead of the long-standing and solemn tradition of democratic co-ordinated government for London under whatever political control — elections come and go, to give all parties a chance—we have a muddle and a plethora of different bodies, which confuse everyone, including the Department, and none of which is directly elected. The boroughs will get about one third of the GLC's services in terms of gross revenue expenditure, excluding debt charges, according to the latest calculations, as opposed to most of the expenditure and functions, which was promised as the central rationale of the legislation when it began its unhappy passage.

One of the worst features of the new scheme for London government is that the entire operation seems to be confused, botched-up and temporary. In a few years' time Parliament will have to return to the subject, and do a major repair job. All parliamentarians must find it tragic to think of all the hours that have been wasted on the legislation. I, therefore, ask the House, especially the Secretary of State, even at this late stage to rise to the occasion, to retrieve something secure from this confusion and chaos, to put the essential services together in one authority rather than into the proposed body, and to make it directly elected and wholly separate and different from the existing GLC, with none of the Left-wing hang ups that have rightly irritated Conservative Members. In that way, we would once again have sensible local government in London.

I hope that the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) will forgive me if I do not follow his comments in detail. He spoke largely about London, whereas my interest lies in south Yorkshire. So far London and the Greater London council have attracted most attention in this debate. The hon. Gentleman suggested that their Lordships have made some minor improvements, and that may be the case. Some noble Lords who may normally be solid supporters of the Conservative party put the country's interest before those of their party in a way which I should like hon. Members in this House to do. The hon. Gentleman may be rather relaxed about the matter because he foresees further legislation in a few years' time. Our worry is that hon. Members from south Yorkshire do not have the time or the opportunity for a leisurely view. The economy of south Yorkshire is appalling and is deteriorating day by day. We are losing more than 200 jobs a week. This is not the time for the Government to plunge the area into the costly chaos that is bound to develop.

Conservative Members know that south Yorkshire metropolitan county has a vigorous, thriving and growing public transport system based on low fares. What has escaped their attention is the fact that ridership has increased. The Government dislike the system and, for no other reason, they have adopted an attitude of hatred towards the county council, and cheer its departure because they want to privatise bus services, which in our area are first class.

I am especially interested in participating in the debate because of the other aspects of the South Yorkshire county council that deserve consideration. It has a high reputation for its environmental work. It commands respect for as intelligent approach towards strategic planning responsibilities, which are now to be changed at a time when the economic condition is critical.

The Minister does not have responsibility for steel and coal, but if he had he would turn grey at what is happening to our special steels industry. The week before last, we heard of the decision to close the British Steel Corporation's relatively new works at Tinsley Park, which he may have visited when he was at the Department of Trade and Industry. Last week, the River Don works, Britain's only large heavy forging and casting capacity, lost 500 or 600 jobs. In the coal industry, 4,000 or 5,000 jobs have been lost within a matter of months. This has happened while the Government are destroying our strategic planning capacity. Within the planning operation and generally, the county council has developed a splendid, internationally commended reputation in environmental protection. That is well known. If the Secretary of State cares to check, he will see that I am making no false or extravagant claims. The county council has done enormous work in recognising and conserving the ecology of our county. It has achieved much in the reclamation of derelict land. The Minister may be aware, despite the contraction of our coal industry, that there is a continuing problem of colliery spoil. There is a continuing and growing need to maintain the current work of the county council in land reclamation. I fear that the measure and the Government's attitude to the modest amendments carried in the other place will be of enormous disadvantage to the county.

I hope that the Secretary of State will not feel that I am being unfair, but the other day I heard him telling a substantial and important gathering how deeply committed the Conservative party was to conservation. He claimed that it is the party concerned with conservation in Britain. I am well aware of what the Conservative party is disposed to conserve.

Themselves.

The Secretary of State made substantial claims on Saturday. However, I am patron of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. There may be other hon. Members from my region who subscribe to the organisation. It is a long-established and reputable body.

indicated assent.

I am glad to have the confirmation of the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson). The West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire metropolitan county councils are the two most important financial supporters of the trust. If they disappear, the income they provide for the trust, which performs an important function in the county, will be imperilled. It is all right for the Minister to say that the quangos or the borough councils that will inherit the responsibility will be able to offer the same support, but hon. Members from Yorkshire, and perhaps other hon. Members, will be aware that, under the rate-capping arrangements and contracting central support for local government to which the Government continue to be committed, there is no possibility of maintaining the support currently given by the county councils. If the Minister pretends otherwise, he is doing his Department and the House a disservice. It worries me that at a time when we need to enhance our environment, to invest in the economy and the environmental infrastructure, to give our crushed and critical economy some chance, to give our young people some hope and to provide some decency for the leisure of those who have gone in huge numbers into the dole queues, one major area of leisure is put under a severe and unacceptable threat. I hope that even at this late stage the Minister will recognise that, whatever concessions he may be prepared to make for London, he is making far too few concessions for the metropolitan counties in the north. In my county, the economic position is grave. The environment will be seriously disadvantaged entirely as a result of this petty, politically motivated and grossly unattractive measure.

I am glad to have the opportunity to follow my colleague from Yorkshire, the hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy). It is undoubtedly true that there is anxiety about several of the changes that will result from the Bill, largely from the cash point of view. However, I do not understand why the matters that the hon. Gentleman raised, especially those relating to the environment, cannot be dealt with under a different structure, provided that sufficient resources are available. Today, we are dealing with the structures through which such services are carried out.

Since the Government came to power in 1979, they have talked about the abolition or reform of the metropolitan county structure. The matter was discussed in the Department of the Environment early in the life of this Government. No report on local government recommended the present metropolitan county structure. It was a compromise. Some of us thought from the beginning that it was a botched compromise, because those authorities were large, had large bureaucracies and incurred vast expenditure on salaries, but had relatively restricted functions. There was no case for continuing them. It was not only Conservative Members or members of the Government in 1979 who believed that; most Labour city leaders believed that. Mr. Ken Livingstone in London and the leaders in Leeds, Birmingham and Merseyside believed that, because there was no balance of responsibilities at the county level as there was at the shire level. They were not responsible for education, but they were responsible for substantial transport systems, the police and the fire services.

I do not accept that this legislation is tragic. It is bringing us back to the position in which we should have been from the start. Those authorities should never have existed, and are unnecessary. The Liberal party and the SDP today agreed that they are unnecessary. However, what they want in their place is equally horrendous, because I believe that the British people want powers pushed back down to a lower level, not the accumulation powers at a regional level.

The hon. Gentleman must realise that the position is different in London. London has had directly elected, citywide government since the London county council was set up in 1889. Therefore, it is nothing new. If the metropolitan county councils are abolished, there will still be city government in Sheffield, Liverpool and Manchester, but there will be none in London. That is the difference.

The point is that history moves on and structures do not remain absolute in value. In London the scale of responsibilities of the citywide authority has steadily diminished under all parties. Only about 10 per cent. of the resources spent on the individual citizen in London is channelled through the GLC. What is the value of the body? My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) always emphasises the need for "a voice" for London. I have never understood whom that voice is for, or to whom it is addressed. I can understand the ceremonial function and that people from around the world might want to be received, but the City of London could do that as well as the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks).

Can the hon. Member explain the intention of the person who gave money to the Horniman museum, over the door of which is the inscription, to which the Bishop of Southwark referred,

"Given to the London County Council as Representative of the people of London in perpetuity"?

What authority other than the GLC or a county council can take responsibility for all citizens and look after all their interests?

City government thoughout the world varies enormously. Municipal authorities elsewhere manage because such gifts are given to parts of cities or to institutions. There is nothing sacrosanct about a particular representative body for a city such as London. London happens to have evolved in a way which is different from other cities. Paris has evolved in yet another way. It has an elected mayor who has almost absolute power, whereas other elected representatives have little or no say. Power there is centralised. Nothing decrees that a particular body should speak for London and have particular powers.

If we had not transferred housing and other major responsibilities down the line the argument would be different. I should have thought that the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), since he represents the Liberal party, would argue in favour of passing responsibilities down the line. He seemed to say that powers should be passed up to a regional body, which is even more divorced from the citizen. Most of my constituents do not know who their county councillors are or what functions they have, so how on earth would they know who to turn to at regional level?

Only inner London had a county council structure and it was called the London county council. The county of Surrey and the county of Middlesex represented many outer London boroughs. Previously most of the metropolitan areas were county boroughs, which were smaller, unitary authorities and therefore more understandable to the public.

The people of Leeds wanted to remain within a county borough. No one recommended the metropolitan county of West Yorkshire, although I am sad to say that a Conservative Government created it. It makes no sense. It is not a metropolitan conglomeration but a huge city with a number of other small towns.

The hon. Gentleman's argument would make sense if the Government intended to pass back to the old county boroughs or districts the functions they lost, but they are not doing that. They are setting up unelected, undemocratic quangos with no responsibility or accountability to the people of Leeds or anywhere else.

I am glad the hon. Gentleman has allowed me to return to my course. I want to deal with precisely those matters. People talk about the residuary body.—[Hon Members: "What is it?"] It is as described by definitiion. It is not intended to exist in perpetuity. Most of us believe that it is important to put the reorganisation on the road, to find out the rough edges and to resolve the problems.

Some of the amendments are farcical. The residuary body is intended to find out how to deal with the functions and to farm them out to the appropriate quarter. Such a body should not be elected. We do not want the residuary body to be perpetuated by making it an elected body.

The House of Lords has the notion that elections should take place for people who are to deal with tiny functions. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East, for whom I have a great respect on a European level, wants a directly elected body to deal with waste—an important function—research agencies, libraries and museums. That is in the realms of farce. We do not have a tradition of direct elections to deal with specific functions.

In other countries such activities are handled on a broader basis on behalf of others by a single elected authority. Even in Britain we have a strong tradition of one authority acting on behalf of another. In education, for example, children can cross a boundary and be educated at a neighbouring school and one authority pays the recipient authority. We have a long tradition of agency agreements. Research facilities, safety inspectorates, quality controls and consumer standards can be operated by one authority on behalf of another through an agency agreement. That is a long-standing practice. An elected body is not necessary to perform that function.

Why make ILEA a directly elected body?

I opposed that idea. I do not wish to be side tracked into that argument. At least I was, and am, consistent.

If we trust the authorities and place responsibilities firmly on them, rather than allowing them to hedge and pass the buck up the line to a nebulous body such as the county council, they will get together and reach agreement.

We tend to view government in the United States in terms of the Senate and Congress, but I have lectured on their history and politics and experienced local government there. Town planning is the responsibility of the town. Small communities and county-level government devise their own plans for their communities. Areas such as Texas deliberately might do little in the way of planning. Where they do, in the east coast states, for example, boundaries adjoin and yet agreements are reached. When I was there last week I found local officials meeting over breakfast. Perhaps that is a good thing because there is less disagreement likely at that time.

The current proposition is not as absurd as some people think. We have accepted many tiers and people spend years making structural plans, decisions often overturned on appeal to the Secretary of State. In many ways the arbiters of planning proposals are the Secretary of State's regional officials. We do not need all the present tiers because people can get together at a planning level to resolve difficulties amicably.

These proposals are long overdue. The present county and London levels are unnecessary and the more quickly that we get rid of them the happier I and my constituents shall be.

The most revealing point made by the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) came at the end of his contribution when he claimed that the Government's proposals are not so absurd as many people think—an admission that the Government's argument is not getting across so well as Ministers claim.

Hon. Members on both sides believe that this group of amendments provides the last chance of maintaining a minimal elected authority in each of the metropolitan areas and in Greater London. Unlike the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West, I believe that the powers proposed in these amendments are coherent and should be operated on a conurbationwide basis covering strategic planning, highways and traffic, waste disposal, central and support services and research and information. Those are all essential, practical services, not the high-visibility political issues which cause anxiety to so many people. The hon. Member for Leeds, North-West claimed that this was a minimal series of responsibilities for which to have people elected, but I believe that it entails a great deal more responsibility to exercise those powers across a metropolitan area or the Greater London area than is exercised by many elected district authorities.

Is it not sensible that decisions on the important functions which affect neighbouring authorities should be taken by representatives from the directly elected district councils who have the interests of their communities at heart? The people on those joint bodies could then resolve the difficulties.

Some of us have experience of trying to get this sort of agreement at local level when the interest of one borough or district is different from that of its neighbours. It is not easy to achieve. This is one area in which some hon. Members are sceptical about the Government's belief that co-operation and co-ordination will magically break out at district or borough level and that it will be all right on the night. This has not happened in practice because, for perfectly understandable and defensible reasons, local authorities fight their corner and for their people. They do not see the overall needs of the wider area, nor should they when they are elected to do a rather different job.

The Government accept that many of these conurbationwide powers cannot be exercised by individual authorities because the Government have created an extraordinary patchwork quilt of joint boards, quangos and other authorities. Much of the expert evidence heard during the Committee stage gives the lie to the belief that there will be co-ordination and co-operation at borough and district level.

Their Lordships went some way to recognise that key services are best carried out at metropolitan level. I welcome the idea of a joint planning committee for Greater London which will give elected borough councillors a chance to discuss planning issues, to represent their views to the Secretary of State and to send representatives to the south-east planning body. Having provided that committee for London, why will the Government not provide the same machinery for the other metropolitan areas, where the problems are the same and sometimes even worse—run-down inner city areas, declining industries, difficulty in attracting new developments and new jobs and problems with public and private transport? It is wildly illogical to provide that machinery for London and to deny it to the other metropolitan authorities.

I endorse what the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) said about the need to view inner city problems on a conurbationwide basis. Our experience of metropolitan government has made it clear that it is impossible to solve inner city problems on the basis of inner city areas alone. One must take a wider view. For example, the Thamesmead new town development in my constituency is a highly imaginative scheme originally launched by the Greater London council. No one could possibly suggest that such a gigantic project could have been undertaken by one or two borough or district authorities.

5.45 pm

The philosophy of this legislation is in sharp contrast with commitments given by the Conservatives before they came to power in 1979. When the Labour Government were considering the question of organic change—the idea of giving powers back to some of the biggest of the former county boroughs—the present Secretary of State for Defence was reported in the Local Government Chronicle of 9 March 1979 to have told the Conservative party local government conference in March 1979 in his traditionally strong and robust manner that the Conservative party rejected the idea of a reform of local government structure. He said:

"I do not believe for one moment that the British people are looking for a major upheaval in local government."

He went on to say:

"Change for change's sake or expensive experiments with the ratepayers' money must be ruled out and that must be the position of the Conservative party."

The right hon. Gentleman announced that he had had discussions with the leaders of the Association of County Councils, the Association of District Councils and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. He went on to make a clear declaration:

"We are agreed that we do not seek another major reorganisation of local government because we are certain that change in this field is likely to be expensive and divisive."

It has certainly been divisive, and from the Coopers and Lybrand studies it is clear that it will also be expensive. The GLC figure for the transitional costs is between £122 million and £167 million. Even on the most optimistic Coopers and Lybrand assessment it would take almost 12 years of annual savings to recoup that kind of expenditure.

The present Prime Minister, speaking at the same conference, promised a close relationship between a Conservative Government and Conservative local authorities. She declared:

"We've worked with you in Opposition. I want to say very strongly that we shall go on working with you in Government."

Clearly, she felt that there was some scepticism on that point because she went on to say:

"In case that comes as a shock to those of you with long memories—I repeat—we shall go on working with you in Government. Good Government rests on a partnership between Whitehall and town hall."

She concluded:

"We are going to give back to you more of the responsibility for running your own affairs."

That will raise a very hollow laugh from many Conservative councillors up and down the country who are suffering even tighter control from the Department of the Environment. It would certainly get a short, sharp and rude response from those Conservative councillors whose councils will be abolished by the Bill. Conservative Members who believe in the traditional Conservative view of local government should support the amendments.

This short debate has allowed the House to rehearse various arguments which have been extensively debated on previous occasions in this House and in another place. In those circumstances, it would not be right for me to go on too long. I shall therefore set out briefly the Government view on the points made by the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) and others.

There seem to be three substantive issues. The first concerns planning in London. I was grateful for the welcome given by the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright) to the amendment accepted in another place. Lords amendments Nos. 1 and 2 and the consequential Lords amendment No. 61 provide for a joint committee of borough council representatives instead of the appointed London planning commission originally envisaged in the Bill. The purpose of the joint committee would be to consider matters of common interest relating to the planning and development of Greater London and to inform the Secretary of State and neighbouring planning authorities of its views. It is important to note that the joint committee will not itself be a planning authority but an advisory committee, as the originally proposed London planning commission would have been.

The Lords amendments owe a good deal to the wisdom of my noble Friend Lord Sandford who has great experience in these matters. The London planning commission as an appointed expert body did not find much favour in another place. Instead, there was felt to be a need to co-ordinate the borough councils' approach to planning in and around London. The proposal for a joint committee has the support of the London Boroughs Association and of SERPLAN, the South East Regional Planning Conference. The Government are satisfied that that change made by the other place is an improvement, and I hope that the House will accept the relevant Lords amendments.

The Opposition amendments to Lords amendment No. 2 seek to do two things. First, they seek to extend the joint committee concept to the six metropolitan counties. Secondly—the hon. Member for Norwood touched on this briefly — they would empower the London joint committee, but, strangely, not the metropolitan joint committees, to issue guidance to which borough councils must have regard in preparing their unitary development plans.

I hope that the House will reject both Opposition amendments to Lords amendment No. 2. The Government remain unconvinced that there is any need for special planning machinery to cover the metropolitan county areas. In this context London is and always has been seen to be a special case. London has more than three times as many planning authorities as the largest metropolitan county and the impact of London's development on the surrounding area is far greater and more complex than that of any other conurbation in England. Our original proposal for a London planning commission recognised those facts and the decision to substitute a joint committee of the boroughs cannot alter the case against providing anything comparable for the metropolitan counties because there is simply no need for any such provision. Each of the metropolitan districts will be a powerful elected planning authority in its own right. To impose a joint planning committee would be an unnecessary bureaucratic top hamper and I advise the House to reject the amendments which call for it.

The right hon. Gentleman may regard London's problems as quantitatively greater than those of areas such as Merseyside or Tyne and Wear, but under the Bill the powers granted to the joint planning commission for London will go to the Secretary of State in the case of the metropolitan counties. That is even more bureaucratic. Does the right hon. Gentleman envisage no possibility of conflict between district councils such as Liverpool and Sefton? Such conflict does not make for good local government planning. What advantage is there to the metropolitan counties in the system proposed in the Bill?

In the case of town and country planning powers in the metropolitan counties the proposal has always been that strategic guidance would be drawn up by the Department of the Environment in response to planning conferences held within the areas concerned. The broad, strategic guidance is and always has been a function of central Government Departments. To try to interpose an extra layer between the powerful district and borough planning authorities and the strategic guidance — I emphasise the word "strategic"—which must inevitably come from central Government will merely create confusion and difficulty, as has already occurred when large bodies of that kind interfere with the planning functions of a large number of districts and boroughs.

Thirdly, amendments to various parts of the Bill seek to provide for multi-purpose directly elected authorities either for London or for the six metropolitan counties or for all seven areas. A number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes), have spoken in favour of those amendments.

I note with some relief that this really is the last opportunity to debate this issue. No one has ever denied its importance. It has been the central issue in the Bill. It has been debated time and again at every stage of the Bill—on clause 1 on the Floor of the House, on several occasions in the Standing Committee and again on Report. On that last occasion, on 27 March, the Voice for London amendment was defeated by 335 votes to 193. Now, undaunted — perhaps refreshed after three months' freedom from the need to debate the matter — hon. Members on both sides have returned to the charge yet again.

And the Government still have not answered the case.

The formation of the proposal is slightly different from those previously advanced, but the objective is the same. Whatever hon. Members may say, the objective is the retention in a different form of the GLC and the metropolitan county councils.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I have only six minutes left—

The Secretary of State is destroying local government, but he will not give way to the chairman of the GLC.

I know that a number of my hon. Friends are and always have been opposed to the abolition of the GLC, but I find the Opposition's stance puzzling. They have not put their names to the amendments relating to London, although they are supposed to be against abolition of the GLC. It is time that we were told what the Opposition policy for London really is.

Democratic government.

Do the Opposition agree with the Frankenstein horror of a report currently going the rounds at County hall which proposes to recreate not just the GLC but a body which could take unto itself a whole mass of additional powers, including powers over the London police, many of the functions of the London boroughs, stretching its tentacles right out into the green belt to commutor services and so forth?

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

That report proposes to lop off a number of outer London boroughs so as to give the resulting body a permanent and undefeatable Labour majority. We need to know whether the Opposition support those proposals.

As for the metropolitan counties, we were interested to see the press notice referring to a letter from the Leader of the Opposition to the leader of West Yorkshire county council, Councillor John Gunnell. The Leader of the Opposition was asked what was the Labour party's future commitment. We now know the answer to that question. The Leader of the Opposition wrote on 4 July:

"With regard to the future commitment of the party I am quite sure that the strong case for strategic authorities in the metropolitan areas which you have advanced so well will influence our future policy considerations."

That seems a less than wholehearted commitment to restore the metropolitan county councils.

Read the rest of it.

The Government view has always been clear. We oppose recreation of the GLC or the metropolitan county councils in any form. Those authorities do not have enough functions to justify their existence as separate directly elected tiers of local government.

Will the Secretary of State give way?

Although the amendments proposed today differ in some respects from those put forward on earlier occasions, neither they, nor, with great respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East, any of the speeches that we have heard today, begin to make out a case for successor authorities.

Those who advocate directly elected authorities for London and the metropolitan counties have consistently failed to answer the following point. They know that the present arrangements do not work. They know that the boroughs and districts are now the major providers of local government services in those areas. They also know that major strategic planning and strategic transport decisions inevitably fall to central Government rather than to local government. That has always been so and will continue to be so in the future. Any attempt to stake out an area between the strong boroughs and districts and the central Government functions to be covered by an intermediate tier responsible for planning, highways, waste disposal and so on is doomed to failure. It is a very small area and certainly not large enough to justify a separate directly elected authority.

rose—

At an earlier stage, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East and other Conservative Members argued that we should abolish the GLC and establish a new body with most of the same functions. That was illogical. They now say that we should abolish the GLC and establish a body covering only a few of those functions. That is even more illogical. If the GLC itself does not have enough functions to justify its existence, how can a body with even fewer functions be justified?

rose—

The case for directly elected countrywide authorities for London or the metropolitan counties does not stand up. Between the functions of the boroughs and districts, which are the major providers of services, and the functions of central Government, which are and always have been wider than those of individual boroughs and districts, there is simply not room for an intermediate tier. Acting jointly, the boroughs and districts can, with central Government, provide all the co-ordination that is necessary.

I do not deny the importance of this issue, but it has been debated time and again in both Houses of Parliament and time and again the changes proposed in the amendments have been firmly rejected. I ask the House to reject them firmly today.

I had hoped that while the Secretary of State was speaking, attempting to clear up in people's minds the commitments made from the Opposition Front Bench, he would clear up the confusion resulting from his statements. He said at the beginning of this exercise that 7,100 jobs and £100 million would go if we did not have democratically-elected authorities. Where are those jobs to go? What services? Which counties? What were the targets in the mind of the Secretary of State when he started making those statements one and a half years ago? In Committee and so far on Report we have had no explanation. The hopes and aspirations of working people in the metropolitan areas and the GLC and the security of their jobs—

(seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Order. Does the point of order relate to the Division?

Yes. We have just had a speech from the Secretary of State for the Environment which lasted about 12 minutes, or one sixth of the allotted time in which the Government have forced the House to consider—

Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that this is not a point of order for me. I am not responsible for Ministers' speeches or their length.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was trying to ask you to protect the rights of Members who want to raise points because you decide when an hon. Member will be called. Ministers who coerce the House in terms of the guillotine should not be given a disproportionate amount of time to speak.

I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but he will know that the House has passed the allocation of time motion and it is my job to ensure that the will of the House in that respect is carried out.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Order. I have dealt with the hon. Gentleman's point. He is now getting close to arguing with the Chair.

I beg to move amendment (b) to the Lords amendment, in line 26, at end insert

'provided that, if such revision contains proposals for the designation of existing metropolitan roads as trunk roads, a public enquiry shall be held before any such road shall be so designated by the Secretary of State.'.

With this it will be convenient to take the following: amendment (c) thereto, in line 26, at end insert

'and the Secretary of State shall not direct that a highway or proposed highway shall become a trunk road until he has considered the proposals submitted to him under this subsection.'.

Lords amendment No. 5, before clause 7, insert the following new clause—

These amendments deal with the vexed subject of the trunking of the south circular road. As many Members will know, this road is a scar through the middle of an otherwise beautiful constituency. The level of traffic on it is totally unnecessary for the local area, and the road itself was not designed to take the level of traffic now on it. It is an unnecessary road, following the completion of the M25, and is totally inadequate.

There is no point in trying to upgrade the road, because, following what I hope will be improvements after a possible west London relief road has been constructed, this part of the south circular road will be rendered redundant. The main argument of my constituents is that under this Bill the trunking procedures required by the Highways Act 1980 are being abolished in the case of the south circular road. One can have public inquiries at any time up to the effective date of the Bill and at any time after the effective date of the Bill, but on the date the Bill is passed the rights of my constituents with regard to trunking will be removed.

6.15 pm

One of the other worries of my constituents is that the south circular road just shovels in the problem front somewhere else. The headaches and miseries my constituents suffer as a result of the traffic, especially lorries, are totally unacceptable and before the road is trunked they would like to express their total opposition to the whole subject of trunking. As a result of the effective abolition of the Highways Act by this Bill, the rights of my constituents will expunged.

I am grateful to the Government for building the M25, which will take a considerable amount of lorry and car traffic out of the south circular road areas. But the M25 will take only approximately 18 to 20 per cent. of that volume. In any event it is not yet finished, and we do not know what will be its exact effect. The democratic rights of my constituents ought to be enshrined in public inquiries before trunking takes place.

I cannot speak too highly of the Minister of State for the way she has tried through public meetings and through letters and interviews with local journals to put her side of the story. She has assured my constitutents that there will be public inquiries prior to any road widening schemes. She also says that no road widening schemes are planned at the moment, but, without prejudice to the assessment studies being carried out at the moment, if there is any widening later there will be public inquiries.

My constituents are somewhat jaundiced about Government assurances following the abolition of the 275,000 aircraft movement limit at Heathrow recently, and therefore wish to have the opportunity of a public inquiry so that the inspector can properly hear the views of people in this area.

One of the things my hon. Friend the Minister does not fully appreciate, but I believe that her officals do, is that there is a basic difference between public inquiries into trunking proposals and public inquiries set up for road widening proposals following this legislation.

A trunk road inquiry differs substantially from an inquiry into a local authority road proposal, because whereas a local authority requires a compulsory purchase order and then a side road order, line orders are not made for local authority roads. Unlike a trunk road, planning permission is required for the construction of a new road by a local authority and where an inquiry is needed into the refusal of planning permission or a called-in application for a new road it will normally be held concurrently with the inquiries into the CPO and the SRO.

The promoting local authority at a public inquiry will be required to prove its case up to the hilt. Before objections are considered it will have to call evidence establishing the need for the road and justifying the scheme as being the best way of meeting that need. By contrast—and this is where constitutionally the people of Richmond are getting a raw deal—the purpose of a trunk road inquiry is not to enable the Secretary of State's case for building the road to be tested in public, but to inform the Secretary of State of the weight and nature of objections to the scheme. The key tasks of the inspector are to take account of objections from people affected by the proposals, to report on those objections and to make recommendations on the proposals. But perhaps the most controversial aspect of road trunk inquiries is that questions on Government policy are outside their scope. The procedural rules specifically require the inspector to disallow any questions which in his opinion are directed to the merits of Government policy. We believe that any inquiry before trunking would give full protection to my constituents. They demand that right.

I can do no better than quote some of the demands made by an organisation called Richmond Residents Against the A205 Trunking. That group has acted non-politically and in a completely non-partisan way. It has worked hard to try to bring to public attention the constitutional disaster that trunking under the Bill produces. I agree with every statement that the organisation makes. It stated:

"We want to cross the main road with no more difficulty than now. We do not want to have to use bridges and tunnels. We want to be able to take our children to school and to shop without being buffeted by vehicles of all sizes or weights. We do not want pavements narrowed in the shopping areas. We want to be able to shop freely on both sides of the road."

Communities are otherwise destroyed.

"We do not want our main road run by a Whitehall department that sees it as a through route to somewhere else, attracting traffic through our constituency. We want the Government to accept any changes made by the House of Lords aimed at keeping London's roads under London control."

The organisation wants a public inquiry.

My final worry is that, even if we had a public inquiry after the road had been trunked and were able to put forward the environmental matters that we believe should be considered with regard to any widening proposals of the south circular road, an inspector might have to resort to the Trunk Roads Act 1936, which describes trunk roads as:

"the principal roads in Great Britain which constitute the national system of routes for through traffic".

In the face of that definition, an inspector would have to say, "I hear the environmental considerations put forward by the local community but, because it is a trunk road, in the national interest I shall order it to be widened." Our ability to complain has been eroded by the Bill.

I understand the worries of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley), because he has expressed them time and again, as is his right. While I fully agree that conditions on the south circular road are completely unsatisfactory and have every sympathy with those who live, work and shop nearby, the road cannot be altered without a public inquiry. The distinctions that he drew between a local road inquiry and a trunk road inquiry are theoretical. Government policy will always be discussed at a trunk road inquiry. There has never been one where that has not occurred. In practice, therefore, the Secretary of State for Transport must justify his case fully. I cannot accept what my hon. Friend was saying about the difference between the two types of inquiry.

Amendments (b) and (c) which my hon. Friend has tabled have problems. First, amendment (b) is incompatible with the power contained in schedule 4 for the trunking of some metropolitan roads on abolition date. Amendment (c) would stop any trunking order anywhere in the country between now and April 1987 at the earliest, because, as my hon. Friend is aware, the power to trunk contained in schedule 4 has been debated and approved by both Houses.

I tabled amendment (b), not (c), which is in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.

I apologise, but the same applies, whoever tabled the amendment.

The hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) spoke to amendment (c), not (b).

I thought that I heard that mentioned before. I am asking the House to resist amendments (b) and (c), for the reasons that I have given. Amendment (c) would stop any trunking order anywhere in the country between now and April 1987 at the earliest. Given the correspondence which I frequently receive in which I am asked to trunk some roads, that would be in no one's interests.

We have debated the power to trunk contained in schedule 4, and it has been approved by both Houses of Parliament. Any proposals to trunk roads in London after abolition date would have to follow the procedures laid down in the Highways Act 1980. In other words, even if the residuary body conducted a review of metropolitan roads for 1987, any trunking proposals would still be subject to the provisions of the Highways Act 1980.

My hon. Friend is aware, and I repeat, that the ownership of GLC roads will be transferred to the appropriate successor authorities at abolition date. I resist amendment (b) because if we were to use the powers contained in the Highways Act 1980 there would be a long period of uncertainty, not just about the A205 in my hon. Friend's constituency, but about all the other parcels of land in the metropolis covered by that provision. It would impose upon local ratepayers the cost of maintaining those major roads in the meantime. I do not believe that that is fair.

It is right for me and the Government to make clear what the transfer of ownership at abolition will mean. Similar transfers of ownership have been made through legislation before—in 1936, 1946 and in 1963 when the GLC was established.

My hon. Friend asked about improvements. He said, "When?" I say, "if'. While we are seeking to improve the environment along the south circular road and in other places, there is no certainty that any of the matters which he and his constituents fear will occur. As he correctly said, we have no plans to improve the road. If there were any proposals to improve the road, they would all follow the normal procedure of public consultation and inquiry, and the full provisions of the Highways Act 1980 would bear upon the handling of the improvement proposals. The power contained in schedule 4 gives the Department no authority to carry out improvements. I hope that that is clear once and for all.

I repeat what we said in Committee, on Report and in the other place, that we shall not revive the ringway road and motorway box ideas. Those plans are long since dead and buried. Those who say that there will be concrete in various places across London which today are the city's lungs are merely scaremongering. They have been financed through the GLC to act in that way.

My hon. Friend said that there are no plans to revive the motorway box around London. Will she remind herself and others that the originator of the motorway box idea was the Labour-controlled LCC and not the Conservative party?

My hon. Friend is correct. Many of those living in the area which would have been affected by the proposal were devoutly opposed to it then, and we have never changed our position.

Why was the Conservative administration at county hall between 1971 and 1973 so much in favour of the motorway box?

The hon. Gentleman knows that not every member of his party agrees council to council. I should have been surprised if after public inquiries those plans had then gone ahead. I am speaking for a large number of people, of whom I am one, living in the area. When the LCC proposed those plans, we knew what would happen if they were allowed to proceed. There are no proposals for a ringway road and a motorway box.

Amendment No. 4 seeks to transfer the GLC highway and financial responsibility to the London residuary body. I sympathise with some of the objectives of the clause, but it is unworkable and inconsistent. Perhaps I can tell the House why it is inconsistent with the general policy underlined in the Bill. The clause would retain a three-tier structure for highway responsibilities in London. It would introduce a new three-tier structure for traffic responsibilities, and it would run counter to overall policy on streamlining embodied in the Bill. It would greatly reduce — perhaps even completely do away with — those benefits which we expect from that streamlining. The residuary body is not a satisfactory body to run these responsibilities. The new clause envisages the GLC's highway and traffic responsibility for metropolitan roads going to the residuary body, and that would be unsatisfactory, because it is only a temporary organisation for major functions such as highways and traffic, because they are permanent functions, and because the residuary body is only an appointed body.

6.30 pm

Both Houses have rejected amendments to establish directly or indirectly elected authorities for metropolitan roads, and therefore metropolitan roads would go to the boroughs, when the residuary body would be wound up. The boroughs are competent to take on the responsibilities for these roads and they are suitable authorities to do so. They are also directly elected. The new clauses are unworkable because they are completely inimical to sensible transport planning for London.

It is true that the residuary body is given certain responsibilities, but these are not set within the wider framework of traffic and highway or London-wide planning duties. Even with the amendments to the Bill which the House has passed tonight, that would not be so. The provisions envisage, in certain cases, dual responsibility for traffic management for the same roads between the residuary body and the boroughs, and I see that as a recipe for trouble indeed. They also create duplication of the reserve powers, with both the Secretary of State and the residuary body having some, but there is no clear division of responsibility for exercising them. They also envisage dual responsibility for prohibiting or restricting the use of lorries, but not for making it clear whether the borough or the residuary body has the final say. They also give the residuary body powers to make grants to any group, as its fancy takes it—goodness knows what they might be—but they do not establish the duties or the systems of accountability in relation to such grants.

The clause does not make proper financial provision for the exercise of highway and traffic functions proposed for the residuary bodies. These are major flaws and they are not the only ones. It is not a matter of tinkering to put these matters right. If the House were to agree with the amendment, substantial parts of the Bill would require major revision. This is not justified when the residuary body is only temporary and when appropriate and competent alternative authorities stand ready and are qualified to take on the responsibilities.

We recognise the need to maintain expert teams, specialist equipment and information gathering. We have always recognised that from the earliest planning days of the Bill. One of the most important things is to maintain the UTC system in London. That is exactly why there is reserve power in schedule 5. We recognise the importance of maintaining data collection and analysis, including accident statistics. We are already discussing with the boroughs how best to maintain the systems and we see the residuary body as providing a home for such systems and staff until permanent arrangements are settled with the boroughs. We do not need a separate strategic body, because our proposals make effective provision for handling the London-wide issues. I can go through those in detail, but the House knows full well what they are.

My hon. Friend is touching on important matters of great interest to our constituents. Can she give any assurance that these matters, when they pass to the boroughs and also to her own Department, will be regularly debated by the House?

In so far as the boroughs have responsibility, these matters will be debated in the council chambers of those boroughs, but in so far as the Department has responsibility, just like any other responsibilities where the Department is answerable, we shall be answerable in the House. That is exactly the way it should be.

We are against the policy embodied in the new clause proposed by amendment No. 4 because the streamlining functions are there and we do not want duplication of administration and costs. The residuary body is not appropriate for these functions because it is only temporary and is only appointed. The detailed provisions are unworkable, wholly inadequate and, as I have said, would require major revision to remedy the defects. In any case, the highway and traffic responsibilities proposed to be transferred to the boroughs are primarily local in nature and are best handled at local borough level. The wider issues can be handled elsewhere where necessary. Those are the suitable arrangements about which I spoke.

The Government ask the House to disagree with the Lords amendment on the situation in the metropolitan county council areas because the clause also makes the arrangements proposed unworkable. It is particularly wrong to introduce into the metropolitan counties the three-tier structure of highway authorities which has already proved unsatisfactory in London. The strategic transportation authority was given a whole host of extra jobs to be done which should best be done at district level, such as traffic management guidance, taking over construction and maintenance of highway bridges, road safety and data collection—all things which can be done adequately at district level.

The provisions of the clause are attractive only to those who believe that everything should be integrated. There is scope in the clause for regiments of staff to produce plans to co-ordinate public transport and traffic across the metropolitan counties, but the real needs of those districts are very different. Road systems in the metropolitan counties consist of interlinking networks of principal and other roads. Almost every journey involves travel on a principal and other road. It is wrong to have separate highways and traffic management responsibilities. Opponents of abolition have made much of the cross-boundary problems, but under the clause district councils would have to consult not only their neighbouring districts, which they should do anyway, but the joint authority, about almost every traffic problem, even down to double yellow lines.

There is no need for a further tier of highway and traffic authorities in the metropolitan areas, and the district councils will talk to each other, as they do already, about the small proportion of highways and traffic management work which requires their co-operation. I do not believe that the great city authorities, like Coventry or Leeds, cannot manage their roads and traffic in sensible co-operation with neighbouring districts.

They have 33 boroughs.

Nor do I believe that the boroughs cannot manage. They are highway authorities already and co-operate across boundaries, as the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), the chairman of the GLC, knows well.

Why is the Minister trunking the roads?

My point about the roads in the metropolitan county council areas is this. We understand that some traffic problems and some road problems need to be considered over a wider district, and that is true of the boundaries of any local authority anywhere in the country. At professional level authorities have good working relationships and joint working arrangements are well precedented, so while I am confident that sensible co-operation will usually prevail, as I have said before, from time to time, just as between other unconnected authorities, problems will arise. For this reason the original provisions provide a framework within which those districts can operate to ensure that wider considerations are properly taken into account.

The Minister has just made the point that in most counties there is one authority. That is because in most counties the travel-to-work area is within one shire county boundary. Does she accept that some at least of the metropolitan areas, archetypically Merseyside, have at present a county area which encompasses one travel-to-work area? Therefore, for example, people do not suddenly cross the Wirral boundary, the Sefton boundary or the Knowsley boundary to Liverpool. They go in and out within that county, and for that county, if not for anybody else, to have no strategic authority higher than district level authority goes against all the logic and all travel patterns and movements.

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is not quite right. The travel-to-work area in my region of Merseyside happens to be Wirral and Chester. Chester is in the Cheshire county council area and Wirral remains for a few months yet in Merseyside. Therefore, we continually cross between two county areas with no difficulty and good co-operation. However, that co-operation happens at local level. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that people observe where the boundary is most of the time, he is in difficulty, because, unlike the French, we do not have signs showing when one is going into or leaving an area.

Schedule 5 contains powers for the Secretary of State to issue guidance to local authorities on traffic management. If the guidance is disregarded, with the likelihood of adverse consequences for a wider area, then, but only in that case, would the Secretary of State intervene if he thought it necessary. Similarly, occasion other local authorities object to a traffic scheme affecting their areas, and if objections cannot be resolved the Secretary of State will, subject to consultation, be able to determine the issue.

One of the most important area-wide traffic management task is the operation of the urban traffic control systems. The Government are fully committed to ensuring continuity in London and the metropolitan counties, and the Bill provides reserve powers for that. If the districts are unable to reach a satisfactory agreement, the Secretary of State can take over such responsibilities. I do not believe that it will be necessary for the Secretary of State to do so, because I believe that in order to carry out their new functions districts will need specialist staff and facilities from the metropolitan county council. A Government amendment from the other place, which we shall consider later, requires residuary bodies to consult successor bodies about likely needs. The residuary bodies can then take over special manpower facilities, and that will ensure a smooth transition on abolition day.

It is time for districts to get down to considering the ways in which they will meet their highway and traffic responsibilities. They are ready to do so. They do not need strategic authorities, which would simply perpetuate some of the worst features of the metropolitan county councils, and even add to them. That would not be a recipe for improved conditions. Therefore, I hope that the House will disagree with Lords amendment No. 5 as well.

I found the Minister's explanation singularly unconvincing, and I think that my hon. Friends will agree. I am the first to concede that the hon. Lady normally deals well with her brief. This was one of the rare occasions on which I have seen her reading the whole brief through from beginning to end.

Maybe she does not believe in it.

I agree with my hon. Friend. I was just about to say that I do not think the Minister believed a word of her brief. She did not appear to convince too many of her hon. Friends, but then again she does not have to. As we saw in Committee, those Tory Members who bother to say anything about the legislation are few and far between, and those who do not bother to say anything vote for the Government anyway, so the Minister does not have too much to worry about.

It will be a sad day for the House when this undemocratic legislation goes through virtually on the nod, as it will by midnight tonight. It will destroy a tier of local government that, whatever its faults over the past 10 years, has proved, particularly in traffic functions, to have been exceedingly valuable and done much good work. The Minister's unconvincing explanation was an illustration of the fact that what the Government are doing tonight they are doing as a result of a Prime Ministerial afterthought in the drafting of the 1983 general election manifesto.

The Government are carrying through abolition without any consideration of the invevitable chaos that will follow when it will fall to those who are at present doing this work in local government to try to make some sort of order out of the chaos — they will try, as they always do. I shall come to the point made by the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) in a moment.

6.45 pm

Lords amendment No. 4 deals specifically with London. During the passage of the Bill through the other place, numerous amendments were tabled with the aim of transferring the strategic highway traffic problems to an appropriate single authority to replace the GLC. Directly and indirectly elected bodies were proposed, with obvious local democratic advantages, as well as the London residuary body. In the many hours of debate on this important issue, cogent arguments from both sides of the other place overwhelmingly supported the need for London-wide co-ordination and for integrated solutions to London's complex problems.

Integrated solutions are necessary even though, these days, the Minister sneers at such solutions. Not long ago she was a fervent and passionate advocate of them. She now has to follow a doctrine, but most people, including a majority of the other place, feel that integration for traffic functions is necessary. The Minister may have picked up her boss's habit of sneering at the word "integration", but nevertheless a majority of her party in the other place felt that integration of these functions was called for, and voted for it.

The way that the Minister read out her brief shows that perhaps she should spend some time in private discussons — we shall not embarrass her by urging her to make them public — with some of her political colleagues at the end of the Corridor, because on this occasion they have proved to be more progressive than she is. She normally likes to be thought of as the progressive, warm and humane voice of the Department of Transport and it must be a real problem for her to have to come to the House to read a brief that was more suitable for the abrasive tone of her boss the Secretary of State for Transport.

The Minister has failed to produce any sound arguments to explain how two Departments — [Interruption.] The hon. Lady has a patronising air. I know that she loves to see herself as the Marjorie Proops of the Government Front Bench. She dispenses advice such as fasten seat belts, do not drink too much, do not be naughty. That is her general philosophy. Tonight she has a brief that does not enable her to do that. She has to read something saying that integration and all the things in which she used to believe, and which she used warmly to endorse and recommend to the nation, if they would take the trouble to listen, are all in the past. These days, to keep her job, she has to prove that she is just as nasty, hard-line and Right wing as the Secretary of State for Transport.

The hon. Lady dismissed all the arguments for integration and for a London-wide authority for highways. The fact that she has said that it will not work does not make it so. The majority of the other place, and therefore the majority of the Conservatives in the other place, has decided that it will. For once, we have to believe it.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the performance of the Department of Transport in redirecting traffic from the M1 into traffic jams elsewhere makes it admirably suited to run every traffic scheme throughout London and the metropolitan counties?

We had exchanges on this point as recently as last Monday. Once again, when the Minister's inherent goodness was called in question by Labour Members, she stamped her foot and said that such criticism was terribly unfair. However, I do not wish to debate the M1 motorway now.

It is for the Minister of State to convince her hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes that she is not about to turn his constituency into a motorway. I do not know how convincing she was; no hon. Member will know until the hon. Gentleman comes to a decision at the end of the debate. However, I found the Minister of State's reply to her hon. Friend singularly unconvincing. It was as unconvincing as the rest of her speech.

The other place believes that there are considerable advantages in the amendment that the Government are seeking to remove. I am not allowed to refer directly to what was said in the other place, and I would not dream of doing so, but it is possible to paraphrase what was said by those Conservative Members of the other place who participated in the debate. With one exception, the Government had no supporters. Some of the speeches should leave the Minister of State in no doubt about the lack of support that their proposals command and about the widespread concern that is felt in both Houses about their inherently undemocratic nature.

The Opposition believe that there are numerous advantages in amendment No. 4. The advantages that were incorporated by the other place mean that the substantial though negative powers of the Secretary of State have been removed. The old fashioned Conservative party would have supported their removal. It professed not to like over-centralisation. If Conservative Members believe that the Secretary of State is hardly the person to leave in charge of a whelk stall on a wet Whit Monday, never mind being in charge of London's strategic highways and planning functions, they ought so to indicate when they have the opportunity to vote.

Amendment No. 4 retains economies of scale arising from the handling of large-scale programmes. The Minister of State was singularly unconvincing about the fragmentation of these functions if the Lords amendment is rejected. The amendment retains a degree of centralised leadership regarding the assessment of priorities and there would be central funding of projects where that is most needed. Is there to be competition between the boroughs? That would mean that those who shouted the loudest, or put in their bids first, would get the financial wherewithal to carry out their role, instead of sensible, centralised planning for highways.

The amendment would provide the body concerned with sufficient breadth and a sufficiently large budget to sustain specialist teams with the computer back up and data collection systems that were referred to in Committee. Few hon. Members who heard the Committee debate would doubt the need for capital-wide planning for these functions.

As for amendment No. 5, the Government were found to have few friends in the other place for their metropolitan county council proposals. The other place made it clear, to say the least, that it was very unhappy about the Government's proposals, particularly about the proposal to devolve highway and traffic functions to district councils. Lord Molson referred to the unsatisfactory nature of the Government's proposals. Although the Minister of State is pulling a face at me for referring to Lord Molson, I think that it is in order for me to mention in passing what he said. Let me try the Earl of Cranbrook on the hon. Lady. He was the Chairman of the Select Committee which had some harsh words to say about the Government's proposals. It is no use for the Minister of State to hide her face and whisper. If she is cross with the more senior members of her party in the other place, that is a matter for her. The Earl of Cranbrook referred to bridge and highway design, major road schemes, urban traffic control, data gathering and travel demand forecasting and said that all such matters ought to be dealt with by a strategic transport authority.

It is significant that the Government's proposals for the metropolitan county councils have been found to be completely unsatisfactory. The Select Committee of another place has also published a report on the Government's proposals. I assume that a majority of Conservative party members serve upon it. The noble Earl to whom I have referred is the Chairman of that Committee and at column 62 of the Select Committee's report he said:

"voluntary joint committees appear unlikely to be to resolve the inevitable policy conflicts, or lead authorities to resolve the conflict between their service role and their policy interests."

The report then said that a more practical option would be a joint authority. It is remarkable when the, in our view, undemocratially appointed members of another place lecture an elected Conservative Government about local democracy. If somebody had said to me a decade or so ago that this would happen, I should have expressed great surprise. The Government have no friends for these proposals.

Amendment (b) was moved by the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes. It is a wondrous thing, having the smallest Conservative majority in England—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I have not finished yet. The hon. Gentleman had a fairly good run. I think that I am on fairly safe ground if I say that he has the smallest Conservative majority in any London constituency. The hon. Gentleman appeared on television, which gave him the opportunity to explain the difficulties that his Richmond constituents will face if the Government's proposals are accepted. I ask again: Has the Minister of State fully satisfied her hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes? If so, he will let the House know, but I shall be surprised if he has been satisfied by the Minister of State's explanation. She said that if the powers contained in the Highways Act were used, her hon. Friend's constituents would face long periods of uncertainty. That was the Minister of State's phrase; I wrote it down.

I hope that the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes will agree with me that uncertainty is exactly what his constituents are facing now. One of the reasons why they have written to him is to demonstrate that they are already suffering because of the long period of uncertainty caused by the Government's proposals. If the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes is satisfied by the Minister of State's explanation, he will say so, but, if not, he will not complain if I exploit that fact. He has had a good run this evening, even though there was insufficient time to debate the matter in Committee because of the appalling, undemocratic guillotine procedure to which the Government have had to resort to get the legislation through this House.

If, like me, the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes is denounced for scaremongering — that is what the Minister of State will say about him if he refuses to accept her explanation — he will have to live with it. Some of us will make sure that the Minister's comments receive fairly wide circulation not only in the hon. Gentleman's constituency but in the other parts of London where people are worried about these proposals.

7 pm

The author of the Bill — the Secretary of State for the Environment — is not here. The man who builds the Boeing 747 aircraft has to fly one, but the right hon. Gentleman has disappeared. The Bill's pilot — the Minister for Local Government — sits beside the Minister of State, Department of Transport. The right hon. Gentleman has had a fairly good run during the Bill's passage. In his humorous way, he has convinced many of his colleagues that the Bill's proposals are totally innocuous.

He has frightened them.

He has persuaded some and frightened others. Normally, he tries not to be too frightening. If there were ever two strong favourites for the political guillotine in October, it is the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Secretary of State for Transport, although the Secretary of State for Transport appears to have been temporarily reprieved. If the Minister for Local Government fulfils his ambitions and enters the Cabinet in October, it will, no doubt, be seen as a suitable reward for this appalling legislation. Like the Minister of State, the right hon. Gentleman knows that he would not reject this proposal if he were really master of his own Department—

Or master of his own ambitions.

—or master of his own ambitions, as my hon. Friend has reminded me.

I admire the Minister's sartorial elegance. His tie reminds me of a British Rail adverisement about black dots and red dots. In his case, the red dots are all the lies that have been told during the past 12 months or so about expenditure in local government and the democratic nature of the Bill's proposals. The black dots are some of the promises that have been made during the passage of the legislation, which will prove to be as worthless as other Government promises. Although the right hon. Gentleman might well receive his reward in October, it is likely to be short-lived. In the opinion of everyone concerned with the functions of local government, he has done local government no service.

Whilst I agree with the principle of abolition and the Bill's main provisions, I believe it right to consider whether there are better ways of preserving some local centres of great excellence. My constituency, which is on the boundary of west Yorkshire and north Yorkshire, falls within Leeds and the urban traffic control area of the west Yorkshire metropolitan county council. I accept the arguments that have been advanced by my hon. Friend the Minister of State that an area on the border of different traffic authorities — the problem is exacerbated in my constituency as the Al goes through the middle of it — emphasises the importance of consultation and of working together. Nevertheless, I am concerned that the centre of excellence represented by west Yorkshire's urban traffic control system should be effectively preserved.

The system in west Yorkshire is one of the most advanced in this country, if not in the world. It is highly integrated and inter-active between a complementary range of services. Many of its ideas for road construction and embankments are especially innovative. The system is a considerable source of pride to the people of west Yorkshire.

It is possible for my hon. Friend the Minister of State to say that, with such a centralised system, a lead authority such as Leeds where the central computer is situated could be an effective way of running the system. However, when dealing with urban traffic control a number of priorities have to be balanced and local jealousies between different district authorities might preclude the effective working of the system, particularly if the lead authority is especially large.

How will the Government ensure that that system is not broken up if the district authorities are not able to agree?

The expertise of the west Yorkshire team is very impressive. I have seen the team in operation. It is right that we should safeguard that expertise. That is where the residuary body can supply the temporary home. The officers of the west Yorkshire county council have said that they believe that they have a role to play. They have formed a company and could use their expertise as a privately run centre of expertise on offer to all districts in the area. That is exactly what we would expect them to do. The co-ordinating committees would have the duty to consider joint arrangements.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that comment.

I am especially worried about the time scale on which change will occur. The people who work for the urban traffic control system in west Yorkshire have very marketable skills. Many of them have been approached by consultants and other companies outside the public sector seeking to snap up their services. These people are highly motivated. They want to work within west Yorkshire's integrated system. Obviously, if they see an uncertain future, they may be tempted by some of the offers. Indeed, I understand that some have already gone to work elsewhere.

I am seeking a clear commitment from the Government that, if the district authorities are unable to co-operate to preserve the urban traffic control system in west Yorkshire, they will step in and ensure that this centre of excellence, which is so highly prized by the people of the area, is retained. The Lords amendment provides one means of doing this. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State can give sufficiently firm assurances of another.

We are discussing one of the principal parts of the Bill. The other place took the view that transport planning should be "integrated" with the running of transport services. Two large amendments are being considered — the first concerns London and the second concerns the metropolitan authorities. I do not think that the Minister of State admits to understanding why we are so keen to persuade her that it would be better to agree with the Lords, so I shall remind her.

No one would say from choice that a body called the "London residuary body", which is a collective of people appointed by the Secretary of State, is the best organisation to take on the co-ordinated planning functions of transport in London. There are not many options available if the Government get rid of a directly elected strategic authority—the option of no co-ordinating body, or the option of something that is better than nothing.

The measure is strongly supported because many people, including most experts who have given evidence, would rather have a co-ordinating body that can consider the problems of London traffic and strategy as a whole. They do not want it to be a Minister.

To give a practical example, outside my street door there is a small road with a wall beyond it, and on the other side of the wall is a large open space that could well become a main road. I would far rather that the people making decisions about what happens to that space, and whether it ever becomes a through road from the Bricklayers Arms down to Woolwich or anywhere else, were a group of non-elected people with special responsibility for all London. I would prefer that body — which could eventually, because it might survive a bit longer than the Government, be converted back into a group of elected representatives — to make the decision rather than that the Secretary of State did. I trust a group of people, and preferably a group of elected people, far more than I trust the Secretary of State to make a decision about the strategic planning of roads in London and what should travel on them.

Do I understand that the Liberal party is now in favour of quangos rather than directly elected authorities to look after planning in London, or is the hon. Gentleman in favour of centralising power? I think that the country needs to know, and the SDP needs to be told.

The SDP and the Liberal party will tell the hon. Gentleman — he now knows it because he has heard it often — that we entered into the debate on the Bill knowing our policy for London and not having to announce it this morning, as did the Leader of the GLC on the radio and elsewhere. Our policy has always been that London needs a regional authority directly elected which should cover these powers and many others. The new super-expanded GLC, for which the present GLC chairman and others will be fighting, is a concept that they have adopted from us, and we have been arguing it for a long time. I am sorry they are so slow at reaching the right conclusion, but that is not unusual. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about quangos?"] We do not want a quango, but we do not want the Secretary of State deciding what should happen in London transport in strategic planning terms.

As regards outside London, according to the amendment, the strategic highway functions which are now governed by the county councils should go to the passenger transport authority which is being set up under the Bill. In the course of debates, it has become clear that some very popular services are being produced by local government in the metropolitan counties. The Tyne and Wear Metro service is one, the public transport service in south Yorkshire is another. They are popular because they are good services, well used, and cheap and because expertise is co-ordinated in running them and in planning for the future. They link the number of people who want to use transport with the transport provided, be it roads or rail lines.

I ask the Minister to say that it is appropriate, as we proposed in the other place, to accept that in the metropolitan areas we, too, co-ordinate to avoid this muddle. The Government are asking us to believe that, in a series of discussions, the districts can agree on some of the most controversial issues. Such issues cannot be reconciled if one district believes that there should be a road while the other does not, and the two districts are adjacent.

I wish to comment on the amendment of the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley). He has been under a lot of pressure from his constituents, quite rightly. We all know the effect of a power which allows the Secretary of State to make decisions about the trunking of roads in London and all the implications on the hon.

Gentleman's constituents and all the people who live along the south circular road, in the borough of Southwark and beyond of trunking in London. Given the Minister's intention that many roads like the south circular will be trunked, the result will be roads which have more traffic, more disruption and more environmental problems for the people who live and work alongside them.

The amendment is a modest one, and I am surprised that the Minister does not accept that the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes needs her support. However hard the hon. Gentleman will have tried, he will have had to tell his constituents that I and others have argued the case that there ought to be a public inquiry before roads in London are trunked, but it fell on deaf ears — Tory deaf ears, Tory Government deaf ears and even the deaf ears of the Minister, who has her home not all that far from the south circular.

If the Government do not think again, the Lords may well stand by what they said last time and the Government may risk losing the Bill as a whole instead of enacting it with amendments that come from sane and sanguine proposals made by people who are trying to improve an appalling piece of legislation.

The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) is not alone in being worried about the accumulation of power to the Secretary of State which is the basis of the matters that we are now discussing. Due to a quirk of our procedure, amendment (a) tabled by the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) cannot be discussed in this section because it has already been debated.

There are obviously grave shortcomings about the residuary body for London. I am concerned about Lords amendment No. 4 only, and not about the other metropolitan counties. I had hoped that the Government would say that, because the other place has looked at the matter carefully, considered the various implications of what is proposed and decided that there should be a Londonwide body to carry out these functions, they would pay respect to that and, if we do not like the residuary body, would find some other way of operating this overall power.

7.15 pm

As someone who has had a certain amount of experience of local government at county and district level, I cannot see how matters will work out in practice when we get down to the nitty-gritty of planning roads in London in future with the various traffic aspects involved, even if it is only a system of traffic lights. I cannot see how that will be worked voluntarily by the boroughs.

The power going to the Secretary of State will be considerable, and can be exercised only with an increased number of staff. I know this is rather like twice cooked meat — we have been round this course so often in the past in relation to the Bill. It is a question of how one views local government and forms one's ideas on that basis. None the less, I think it is sad that the Government are to resist the Lords amendment.

The need for an integrated countywide authority is very great in an area like Merseyside. I am surprised that the Minister does not recognise the true needs of Merseyside and how these are likely to be jeopardised if the Bill—and particularly this part of it — is enacted.

On Merseyside, the principal road network takes up 10 per cent. of the total network in the area. Although the principal roads represent only 10 per cent., they carry 50 per cent. of the traffic. Most of the business traffic and heavy goods vehicles cross the boundaries between the various districts. Fifty per cent. of car drivers commute across district boundaries in Merseyside. I cannot accept the point that the Minister made in reply to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes). The travel-to-work area for most of those people who live in the built-up parts of the Wirral, the old constituency of Wallasey and Birkenhead is undoubtedly across the river Mersey into the rest of the conurbation, and particularly into Liverpool.

If one looks beyond the highways, one finds that 80 per cent. of traffic signals on Merseyside are under central computerised control. Therefore, a countywide operation is essential, for which the districts are not automatically prepared. Urban traffic control cannot be managed in isolation from all the other traffic and highway functions such as the collection and analysis of data traffic management, road improvements and route signing, all of which are closely bound up with urban traffic control.

There are many specialist services which must be shared for economic reasons. It is clear that they are too costly to duplicate. I cannot conceive that Sefton, the Wirral, Liverpool, St. Helens and Knowsley will be able to provide services to provide urban traffic control, research and development, bridge inspection and maintenance, engineering laboratories, geo-techncial surveys and materials testing and development. All these services are highly costly.

It can be argued that it is possible for such services to be provided by someone else, and I think that the Government have someone else in mind. They are not concerned with replacing one democratic countywide authority with another such body, which might be elected indirectly by the people of Merseyside through their district councils. All the evidence would seem to point in the other direction. The authority that the Government have in mind is the Secretary of State for Transport. Heaven help us if he were to take control. One example of his control is the shambles of the Transport Bill that is before Parliament.

Districts do not necessarily have coincidental interests. There may be many conflicts between district councils over the need to provide, maintain or restore certain roadways. A district council could downgrade a vital strategic route either explicitly or by neglect at the expense of essential traffic that is generated elsewhere.

The real reason for the introduction of the Bill, and the reason why no adequate democratically elected control of authorities is envisaged within it, is that the Government dislike the present political control of the metropolitan counties. That is the sole reason for the Bill being before us. If Merseyside were run by the Conservative party, for example, the Bill would not be with us.

If the Minister of State is suggesting that the district councils will be able to afford to provide the services and functions that we are discussing, I believe that she is quite wrong. New clause 8 would forestall the real danger of continuing central Government encroachment on local responsibility for principal roads. That is why the House should approve it. It obviates the need for the reserve powers that the original Bill sought to give the Secretary of State.

There are those who say that the Secretaries of State for Transport and for the Environment genuinely envisage the district councils having more power over highways, that they are democratically elected and that there is nothing sinister about the Bill. A real sign of the Department of Transport's intentions on strategic highway issues is to be found in a guidance note that the Department issued recently to district councils to assist them in planning for their enhanced transport responsibilities. The existing strategic functions of the metropolitan county councils is scarcely mentioned and there is no reference to the relevant manuals and advice notes. Against that background, and with the reserve powers that are contained in the Bill being directed specifically at matters of more than local significance, it seems that the Department rather than the districts will be the de facto highway authority for principal roads under the Bill's original provisions.

A provision for a countywide highway authority would impede the covert increase in Government power and responsibility. That is why new clause 8 is essential even to support the Government's argument, which I do not think they believe in themselves, that there must be co-operation between the districts to obtain a countywide integrated highway system.

I invite the Government to issue a new guidance note. I suggest that they refer to the competent manuals on the subject. Let them ensure that there is democratic control and that the expertise of the teams of workers in areas such as Merseyside is maintained. The Minister of State has told us that she has been to west Yorkshire and has spoken to the experts in that area. She commends what they have done. I hope that she has visited Merseyside as well, whose experts are at risk of being thrown to the winds. They are people of substance and the enactment of the Bill could oblige them to seek employment in other areas. If we are to allow Liverpool, Sefton, the Wirral, St. Helens and Knowsley to have the same expertise as has been available in those areas and built up since 1974, the hon. Lady should examine closely the contents of new clause 8. I hope that the Government will adopt the clause, but I appreciate that I am entering into a dialogue with the deaf.

Unless there is a sign in the Government's response to these amendments that their intention is to keep local government local, it is inevitable that we shall be presented with a national network that will involve more bureaucracy from the centre.

It has always seemed to me that roads, especially local roads, involve issues that become personal. Roads and associated considerations arouse strong sentiments when they are discussed by those who live near them. The Government have recognised that by providing that in the main the highway authority should be the local council. I do not dispute the views that have been expressed by my hon. Friends the Members for Elmet (Mr. Batiste) and Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley). I do not dispute the views that we have heard from the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) because I do not know the facts.

However, I am only too well aware of the story of two roads. I live close by the south circular road, which is notorious in London. I have knowledge also of a road that is yet to be born, we hope, which is the Kingston relief road, which is within the royal borough of Kingston upon Thames. This road will have a serious effect on my constituents who are business men in Kingston.

The south circular road has been under the strategic control—I use the term loosely—of the Greater London council. The road is well known as a collection of signposts. It weaves its way across south London. If I had a pound for every time someone has stopped me in one of our suburban highways off the so-called south circular road to ask me whether they were still on it, I should be a very wealthy man. The south circular road is a positive disgrace and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes will confirm that. Over the years the GLC has failed completely to maintain a proper highway for those who want to cross south London. As a local resident, I would rather that the road fell under the control of the Department of Transport than under the GLC. I would prefer the local authority in my area, the excellent borough of Wandsworth, to deal with local matters.

7.30 pm

The Kingston relief road is a classic case of how this fag-end Greater London council is behaving in a particularly partisan way. The GLC secured money from the taxpayer for some of the strategic road schemes in London by using various cases. One of the cases involved the Kingston relief road which, as is well known, is required in Kingston upon Thames. The GLC has that money from the taxpayer in its coffers, yet it refuses to hand it over to the council of the royal borough which is to take on the construction management of that road. It has instead, quite deliberately in my opinion, handed over the money to local authorities controlled by the Labour party in various parts of the GLC area.

That is the way that the strategic authority, the GLC, manages affairs, as far as I can see. I think that it will be better for the people of London, for whom I speak in part, if the responsibility rests with their local authority and, thereafter, with the Department of Transport. I support the Government recommendation that we should disagree with the Lords amendment.

When the Minister was telling us why the Lords amendment should be opposed, she said that the reason was that it was not consistent with streamlining. I did not feel that she could say that without cracking into a large smile and then a big belly laugh because she cannot believe that the Bill streamlines anything in terms of either transportation or other services.

I ask the Minister to look carefully at the Bill to see how many successor bodies will inherit the powers of the GLC and the metropolitan county councils. I do not have the time to read through them, but they include joint boards, residuary bodies, co-ordinating joint committees and quangos — a total of 62 bodies. Then there are the Government Departments — the Department of the Environment, the Department of Transport, the Office of Arts and Libraries, the Department of Education and Science and the Home Office. That is another five. Then there are approximately 127 other local authorities. The grand total is 195. Has the Minister ever studied how many bodies will inherit from the GLC and the metropolitan county councils?

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, the chairman of the GLC, for giving way. He is speaking specifically about London so I shall confine my remarks to that. Has he considered how many times the requests of a London borough have to be rubber-stamped or gone through again by the GLC? Why does a borough that needs double yellow lines to make a turn-out from a service road safe have to go to the GLC transportation committee? That is the duplication that we are getting rid of. That is the streamlining that we are doing.

That is an interesting point. Has the Minister read the Lords amendment? The hon. Lady will see that the amendment that the Government now seek to overturn was careful to devolve traffic responsibilities on borough roads to the individual boroughs. They would become responsible for traffic signing, signals, parking, pedestrian crossings and speed regulation on the roads. That would considerably reduce duplication.

Whatever the Minister thinks about the GLC, she should not be opposing the Lords amendment. It gives her precisely what she just argued for at the Dispatch Box. She has not read the Lords amendment, and does not understand the consequences of the Bill with regard to streamlining. It is nonsense, and the hon. Lady knows it.

I am surprised that the Opposition should be so vehemently opposed to greater powers being transferred to the boroughs. After all, they have been trying to criticise the Government in our long debates on the Bill, saying that not enough power is being given to the boroughs, that we are not devolving enough power, and that what Conservative Members have been arguing, which is that the whole purpose of the Bill is to give local people a say in local matters, is rubbish. Once they have an opportunity to see real powers being given to the boroughs, the Opposition oppose that.

From my point of view in the London borough of Enfield, it makes sense that the borough should be the responsible authority. It is already responsible for all but very few roads in the borough. The Bill will increase efficiency and reduce costs if the borough is responsible for the few remaining roads in the borough—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way.?

I shall not give way because I think that some of the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends still wish to speak.

The GLC's behaviour on road matters has been extraordinary. It uses partisan tactics to stop boroughs that want to go ahead with road schemes in the interests of the local citizens from doing so. There is an example in the borough of Enfield, where the Barnet and Enfield lorry ban has been held up by the GLC, so that the local citizens will not benefit from relief from heavy traffic in the area. We have seen the same example in south London where the GLC, despite the advice of its friends in Southwark and Lewisham, has tried to stop the relief road from the Old Kent road being developed.

The local boroughs need to have those powers so that we can develop roads and road policy in London that are to the advantage of local citizens.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) hit the nail on the head. It is patently obvious that the Minister of State either has not read the Bill or has not read the Lords amendment. She said that there was duplication, but the contrary is the case. I have heard her speak on several occasions, and there are only two conclusions that the House can come to tonight — either that she had a poor brief or that she did not believe that brief. I think that it was both—she had a poor brief and she did not believe it.

The hon. Lady did not make a logical or reasoned case against the amendment when, having changed her mind, she said that those who supported the amendment were those who supported integration. She is perfectly correct. She used to he one of our number, but she has changed. May I drag her, kicking and screaming — it is a frank offer — into the real world?

I am already in the real world.

I think that the hon. Lady has to come into the real world. She will realise that after I have finished.

There was a Bill on local government in 1972. Being adaptable, local government conformed to the Bill. One of its requirements was that local government should integrate. Was it surprising that it did just that? That was the wish of the Government of the day. The unreasonable argument, "It was like that in the past, and the old county boroughs had those functions," is so naive that Opposition Front Bench spokesmen should not have to expose it. It assumes that nothing happened until the county boroughs became county boroughs. However, the contrary is the case. Because the metropolitan county councils and metropolitan districts were set up under the remit of a Conservative Government in the 1972 Act, services were centralised and systems integrated, such as the Tyne and Wear Metro, many bus services, the central control of traffic movements, and specialised teams to co-ordinate their areas of responsibility. It is no surprise that that happened, but it is surprising that the Minister does not believe that it happened.

If the Lords amendment No. 4 is not accepted, local authorities will be required quickly to dismantle everything that was set up under that Conservative Government. Many Conservative Members seem to favour the Bill so long as it does not affect their constituencies, and where it does affect their areas they have asked the appropriate Minister to make concessions and deviate from the Bill. They must also come into the real world, because that cannot be done.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is significant that the Minister seeks to rush through the proposal to trunk 65 miles of London's roads without any public inquiry precisely because she has no answers to the type of objections that hon. Members have been raising on constituency grounds because of the obvious implications of trunking, widening those roads and further taking control of transport planning matters from local people in London?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I shall return to that relevant point.

I was talking about specialised teams. They are already starting to break up and, not unnaturally, to look elsewhere. The Minister is on record as saying that the Government recognise the specialised teams and would like to keep them, but they leave it to God and good neighbour and do nothing themselves to ensure that those teams continue to exist.

I now come to the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn). Apart from integration, the Government believe that there is a strategic role, and that there should be overall planning and control in large areas. The basic difference between us is that the Opposition believe that there should be local democratic control. The Government have set themselves up in London as a de facto strategic body and, therefore, they obviously believe in overall planning and control. They believe that they should be in control and that the local voice should not be heard.

The strategic body in London for transport will be the Department of Transport, and it will have powers, to which it can add ad nauseam at any time. Even the Government's friends in the other place see through that kind of argument. On the Select Committee—I shall not quote from its report because I have no time — the Government do not even have a friend of their own persuasion. Time and time again professional people, hon. Members and their Lordships have rubbished the Government's arguments.

The Government have tried to hide the arguments by bringing the Bill back to the Floor of the House, and pushing it through at the speed of light. There is no substance behind anything that the Minister has said because integrated systems already exist. If we do not pass the Lords amendment, we shall leave overall control to voluntary co-ordination. I have news for the Minister — there is no such animal.

The Government want to ensure that the specialised teams continue to exist, but that will not happen. In the past where joint organisations have been set up and failed to agree, it has been to the detriment of those whom they serve.

I remind the Minister of the content of her speech. She spent 14 minutes on the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley), seven minutes on amendment No. 4, which dealt with London, and the glorious sum of five minutes on a major alteration—