My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport (Ruth Kelly) has made the following Ministerial Statement.

Roads are vital to our way of life, connecting people with jobs, schools, shops, family and friends. We must ensure that road users have reliable journeys on safe, well-managed roads. So today I am publishing the Command Paper Roads—Delivering Choice and Reliability which sets out how we aim to get the best out of the road network.

The greatest barrier to reliable journeys is congestion. It is frustrating for motorists and has serious consequences for the economy and the environment. So we are taking a number of important steps to tackle it, focusing our efforts over the next decade on where congestion is worst—on our urban roads and motorways.

I am today announcing that £6 billion is available to fund improvements to national strategic roads in England in the period up to 2014. These improvements could include an innovative mix of road widening, opening up the hard shoulder, and junction improvements. In the Command Paper I set out which national schemes are being considered for this funding, which is in addition to that for strategic regional roads provided through the regional funding allocation process.

While some road building is needed to provide extra capacity, we must also consider how to add capacity to existing roads. That is why I am exploring where the hard shoulder could be used to provide extra space on the motorway network. Where we add new capacity either by using the hard shoulder, or by widening roads, I am particularly interested to see what role tolled or car-share lanes could play to give motorists a more reliable journey. Further work will be done on this in the coming months.

I am also today publishing cost estimates for the Highways Agency major roads programme. Since the Nichols review last year, the Highways Agency has made some important changes to its management of the roads programme. These changes are outlined in the Command Paper. The revised cost estimates for regional schemes will help the regions plan their programmes more effectively over the coming regional funding allocation period. I am placing a copy of the estimates in the Libraries of both Houses.

The majority of congestion is in our towns and cities so we have allocated an extra £200 million per year from the transport innovation fund to help local authorities manage congestion in innovative ways. I am announcing today that further pump-priming funding will go to Cambridgeshire, Reading and Leeds to help them take forward their ideas. I have also previously announced that, to help local authorities with their thinking on congestion charging, we will run a demonstrations project to trial the technology and processes that could underpin a more sophisticated future congestion charging system. My department will today tell all those companies that formally expressed an interest in participating in the project the names of the successful bidders. The trials are due to start in the autumn.

I am also today announcing that eight of the 10 largest urban areas in England, that all have congestion targets, will receive the first tranche of the performance-related payments from the urban congestion performance fund. The fund is worth £60 million over four years and, based on their 2006-07 target performance data, £6 million will be shared between Bristol, Greater Manchester, Leicester, London, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear and the West Midlands. All 10 areas will be eligible for further funding based on future years' performance data. This funding, along with an additional £8 million I am announcing today to help local authorities manage their transport assets more effectively, on top of £15 million already announced in January, is all in addition to the amounts provided through the regional funding allocation process.

It is important that people have the reliable journeys they want. The Command Paper I am publishing today sets out a clear strategy for getting the best out of our roads in the coming years so we can make that a reality.