To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what assessment he has made of the implications for the A1 in Scotland of the upgrading of the A1 south of Newcastle to motorway status.

The most recent assessments following the routes south of Edinburgh study concluded that upgrading the A1 from London to Tyneside would result in only approximately 300 additional trips per day across the border on the A1 by the year 2008. This is because the majority of long-distance traffic crossing the border on the A1 is coming from or going to the north-east of England and would therefore be very little influenced by the upgrading of the A1 south of Teesside. I am satisfied that the £50 million package of improvements I announced in April together with the implementation of a route action plan which the A1 steering group has been charged with formulating will considerably improve this important and strategic route to the advantage of Scotland. The monitoring of traffic on the A1 by the steering group will give an early warning of traffic pressures developing which exceed forecasts.