Barbara Keeley (Lab, Worsley)
From the outset, my concern about Greater Manchester’s bid was that my constituents would not benefit from better public transport yet would end up paying congestion charges on journeys into Manchester and on local journeys to Salford and surrounding areas such as Trafford and Bolton. Many of my constituents commute to work in central Salford or Manchester, and the poor state of the public transport run by privatised service providers means that many have no option but to travel by car. The congestion charging proposals will mean that they will have to pay from £500 to £1,200 annually just to get to work. Many other Worsley constituents face charges when they cross charging zones on more local journeys. Examples include parents taking their children to school or teachers travelling to work at schools such as Bridgewater school, which is inside the zone. Salford council has a plan to merge St George’s high school in Walkden, which is outside the charging zone, with another school at a location inside the charging zone. Congestion charges would make the merger proposal very unpopular with staff and parents alike… Given the situation with public transport, it is my firm view that the consultation proposed by the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities and the passenger transport executive is not up to the task…. Some compelling points need to be aired during the debate. First, the charging zone in Greater Manchester is considerably larger than for any other existing scheme. It will cover 76 square miles, or 15 per cent, of Greater Manchester, compared with eight square miles covered by the original London charging cordon and 11 square miles in Stockholm. The charging cordon for Greater Rome covers an area of just two square miles, or three per cent of the city. The economic base of the Greater Manchester zone is fundamentally different from other charging locations. Charging schemes have been introduced in high-density employment areas such as city centres, which have an established public transport infrastructure. I have made it clear that no such infrastructure exists, certainly not in my constituency, whereas in London, 80 per cent of workers in the zone already travelled to work by public transport before the charge was introduced.
Mark Hunter (Lib Dem, Cheadle)
I accept that there is a good case to be made for a national congestion charging scheme. Such a scheme will be in place probably within 15 or 20 years, at least on our motorways and trunk roads. However, it is difficult to overestimate – I choose my words carefully – the seething resentment in some parts of the Greater Manchester conurbation about being used as a laboratory experiment in respect of this scheme… I can understand why people in the city centre might vote for the scheme, but people outside the second ring will be asked to pay twice. What makes it even more invidious is that the people in Stockport borough will not get the promised public transport improvements – not in the foreseeable future, anyway.
Andrew Gwynne (Lab, Denton and Reddish)
I lay claim to the most pathetic train service in the entire United Kingdom, which has just one train, once a week, in one direction between Stockport and Stalybridge via Reddish South and Denton stations on Saturday morning. Therefore, I appreciate that the nearly £3bn package of funding that [the government] put on the table must be seriously considered. I doubt whether we shall ever again be offered such a sum to put right the many wrongs that collectively form the Greater Manchester transport network. That £3bn is needed, and it is needed desperately… The real controversy lies with the Greater Manchester congestion charge element of the proposal, and particularly in communities such as those that I represent which straddle the M60 charging zone. Whether people agree in principle with the notion of congestion charging, if the aim really is to tackle unnecessary traffic heading into and choking up the city centre, they can just about accept the logic of a system that identifies the traffic that causes the problem and consequently imposes a charge, but what Greater Manchester proposes is a two-ring system with a £2 charge for passing the M60 outer ring and £1 charge for passing the inner ring with a further £2 charge to return over the M60. Charges would apply only at peak times and in the direction of the congestion. That takes no account of local travel and of allowing communities to operate in a joined-up way, as they have always done… I have absolutely no answer to the young mum who came to my advice bureau recently. She lives in Audenshaw, one of the towns sliced in two by the M60, works in Ashton-under-Lyne, and travels away from the peak traffic flow in the morning and evening, so ordinarily would not be charged, but she has to drop her daughter off at a local private day nursery, which is in her community of Audenshaw and less than quarter of a mile from where she lives. Because it is on the opposite side of the M60, she would be charged £2 a day under the proposals. When she told me that that will not tackle congestion because she is not causing it, and that it will merely add £10 a week to her child care bill, I had no answer, and the Greater Manchester scheme has no acceptable answer either.
Graham Stringer (Lab, Manchester Blackley)
The congestion charge is a misnomer. It is a new tax specifically for Manchester that is related neither to the ability to pay nor to congestion. The charge will be paid by people who have no public transport alternative and it could last for 30 years – it has, in fact, been boasted that it will last for that long. Put like that, the charge is a pretty unattractive proposition… The Government’s grant is £1.21bn – it is not clear how many years that is over, but it is possibly five or 10 years – which is a relatively trivial amount of the transport allocation to the regions. The rest of the cost is to be met locally. When we compare that figure with what has been spent on London – for example, on Crossrail, on Thameslink and on writing off the disgrace of the Metronet contract, which was more than that in just one slug of £2bn – it seems that such a scheme should be wholly funded by central government… I might be wrong on this because I have had to work it out myself, but it seems that £1 in every £6 of the Government grant of £1.21bn will be spent on kit for the congestion charge… A fundamental problem with the scheme is that it assumes that one will know what will happen to congestion over 30 years. However, we do not know what will happen to the price of oil next week, let alone over 30 years. That is a fundamental flaw and we could be left with £200m of kit and no congestion to pay for it.
David Heyes (Lab, Ashton-under-Lyne)
Today’s debate is welcome and timely. Equally welcome is the prospect of what would be an unprecedented level of investment in Greater Manchester’s public transport. Particularly in the case of my part of the conurbation, completion of the Metrolink to Ashton-under-Lyne is essential to the future economic well-being of Ashton. There is the prospect of a better heavy rail service through Ashton-under-Lyne, where there have been years of commuter misery because of overcrowding and the complete inability of potential passengers to get on to trains when they arrive. There is also the prospect of local bus improvements, which are much needed, but only if they can be linked with re-regulation. I am a supporter of the TIF proposal, but we need to get the details right.
Tony Lloyd (Lab, Manchester Central)
The real damage of congestion is straightforward. Independent surveys have come up with numbers – for instance, that the conurbation will lose 30,000 jobs over the next 10 years. We can dispute the exact numbers, but it would be a very foolish person who said that congestion would not have a serious impact on the labour market… We need to ensure that the information base is fair. For example, we must be sure that big organisations such as Peel Holdings that are opposed to the congestion charge also play a responsible and acceptable role and do not simply engage in propaganda… The conurbation could have first-class – indeed, world-class – public transport. We should not deny that. We should not say that it can be achieved in other ways.I hope that the [shadow transport secretary] will persuade Tory councillors in Greater Manchester to accept that the legitimate way to take this forward is to have a county-wide referendum. That would give every individual the opportunity to have a say and to make their vote count. That would result in a proper transport system, with a proper structure across the conurbation. It would not simply be selfish voices being raised from particular parts at the expense of the wider community.
Ian McCartney (Lab, Makerfield)
One of the big things for us – this is why I support the bid – is that for the first time we see a plan for multi-million-pound investment in new infrastructure and schemes to update the dilapidated infrastructure in the most westerly parts of the Greater Manchester conurbation… One thing is certain. If the bid does not get through, if it is undermined and nothing happens – we could add all those things that we have not discussed plus everything in the bid – we would still be left with congestion. We will still be left with constituents who, like mine, pay through the precept to subsidise the city’s transport infrastructure and receive nothing back.
Graham Brady (Con, Altrincham and Sale West)
I think that the scheme is deeply flawed, for three key reasons. First, a congestion charging scheme should be easy to afford, but this scheme is not. It will cost many people £5 a day but, as has already been admitted, it could cost others as much as £10. There will be no discount for residents, unlike the London scheme, which people need to understand in the consultation process. Residents are going to be hit very hard. Secondly, such schemes can work only when public transport in the area is good enough. At the moment in Greater Manchester, public transport is such a long way from being good enough to replace the use of the car that many people, including the constituents of [Ian McCartney], will continue to pay, without getting the return that he hopes they will get. Thirdly, such a scheme must be simple to understand. However flawed and one-sided the consultation, it will highlight the fact that the scheme is not easily understandable and is incredibly, absurdly complex. Two circles are already proposed, and a third, outer ring might be introduced in due course. People do not understand the scheme, it will be complicated to operate, and it will cause endless confusion and complication in people’s daily lives if it is introduced.
John Leech (Lib Dem, Manchester Withington)
Any local scheme must generate revenue to pay back the cost of improving public transport, which has been hopelessly underfunded by successive Governments in the past thirty-odd years. That is why the Liberal Democrats in Manchester proposed a Greater Manchester-wide referendum on the plans, so that everyone in the conurbation could have their say… The consultation process is not only about a referendum. Before a referendum can be carried out, there must be a period of consultation on the proposals. The consultation must be meaningful, clear and unbiased, and residents must be given the full facts. Unfortunately, the evidence that I have seen does not give me any confidence that that will happen.

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