Derek McDowell (Labour)

For the record, the 1987 deal was a bad deal. Everybody in this House knows it was a bad deal. The Minister accepts it was a bad deal but it was 1987. I say that because I sometimes think colleagues do not realise how much of a turn-off it is for the electorate for politicians to spend all of their time talking about something that happened 20 years ago or even ten years ago. In so far as we can learn lessons, we can learn from 1987 and the deal that was done. We must have regard to it but let us move on and see what we have to do.

I find myself conflicted with the Bill, largely because of a point Senator Mansergh made towards the end of his contribution, namely, that it is obviously intended primarily to introduce the barrier-free toll system on the M50. I do not believe there should have been tolls on the M50 in the first place. It is the experience not just in Paris but in virtually every major capital city in Europe that one does not have tolls on ring roads. The reason is to actively looking to encourage people to use them so as to take traffic out of the city centre. We are not in that position here. I very much regret that is the case. Looking at the facts in an objective and dispassionate way, I accept it is difficult to see how we can get back into that position.

The central question with which we are faced is why we should use tolls. Two reasons come forward as to why we have to continue tolling in some form or fashion. One is demand-managment, to which Senator Ross referred earlier. The second is, as the Minister argued, to continue to pay for the compensation to NTR and for the improvements to the M50. There is a core of truth to what Senator Ross said earlier in that we are paying over lots of money to NTR over the next 12 years or so. Where he clearly missed the point — presumably deliberately — is that the taxpayer is not paying that money, it is coming from the users of the road.