14:30 Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)

Our concern is partly about the economic impact on individuals, including the specific difficulties that individuals may experience in getting to work, but we also have growing environmental concerns. The Climate Change Act 2008 has targets to reduce UK greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. In 2009, the transport sector accounted for a quarter of domestic carbon dioxide emissions, with 90% of those emissions coming from road transport and 55% from domestic cars alone.

Why, at a time when we are so concerned about environmental issues and when we now have the Climate Change Act, would we deliberately want to price people off rail and encourage them to get back into their cars? Furthermore, are we really so certain that the Government’s claim that those increased fares will lead to better investment and improved facilities on the rail network will actually become a reality? The rail structure is very complex and there are big questions to be asked about whether all of us—the traveller and the taxpayer—are getting good value for money from the investment put into rail.

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15:19 Martin Vickers (Conservative)

Despite a CSR that has been, on the whole, much better, as other hon. Members have said, than was perhaps anticipated, there have been some disappointments in my constituency, particularly over delays to the A160 upgrade and the A18-A180 link road. The A160 upgrade is the link between the M180 and Immingham docks. It has long been a national priority to improve access to our major ports. Measured by tonnage the Immingham-Grimsby dock complex is the largest in the UK. The Humber bank is an established centre for energy refining and chemicals and is ideally placed to become a hub for the renewable energy sector following the granting of planning permission for the south Humber gateway project, which will provide about 4,500 jobs in the first five years and the prospect of many more in the following decade. Access via the A160 has, as I mentioned, been delayed.

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15:37 Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)

As the Secretary of State confirmed in an answer to me earlier today, there is also the use of the new methodology for calculating the future cost of carbon. One of the most disastrous calculations by the previous Government was their use of an adulterated version of what was recommended by the Stern review to calculate the future cost of carbon emissions, which is, in effect, the value of future lives lost by climate change. They so heavily discounted that rate that projects such as the third runway at Heathrow looked economic when the cost of climate change was taken into account. It took only a change in the calculation for the idea of a third runway to look as bad as it does, and for the project to be rightly stopped. I am pleased that the new methodology will be adopted in calculations relating to all future projects.

I am rather surprised that the hon. Gentleman thinks that the methodology was not flawed. It was changed in March, and the now leader of the Labour party, the former Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, rightly presided over that change, which this Government, who took office shortly afterwards, took up. I think that the hon. Gentleman needs to be careful about his calculations.

As far as the other airports are concerned, it is very important that aviation is constrained across the European Union, and indeed around the world, as part of our assault on the threat of climate change. Unless the hon. Gentleman is challenging the methodology used by Sir Nicholas Stern—now Lord Stern—in his review, which was commissioned by the previous leader of the Labour party and Prime Minister, he will have to explain what methodology he would use to reflect the true economic cost of the threat of climate change. The methodology has been widely accepted in business and by investors and is now part of business calculations, and the use by the previous Government—until they changed their mind at the very last minute—of an incorrect and adulterated version of the cost of carbon, deviated from good business practice, apart from anything else.

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16:14 Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)

The Minister is teasing me. She knows full well that we just lost a general election on a policy of an additional runway at Heathrow and that my new leader—who, as the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) mentioned earlier, had a particular view when Secretary of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change—has announced that we are reviewing all our transport policy. I do not accept, by the way, that the methodology was flawed, although I accept that it has been upgraded and improved—“flawed” suggests that there was some skulduggery somewhere, which I do not buy in any way, shape or form.

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16:43 The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mrs Theresa Villiers)

The Government want to break away from the recurrent pattern of spending squeezes of past years when, more or less inevitably, the axe fell first and hardest on transport infrastructure projects. As my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) acknowledged, transport has been given a high priority in the spending review, which reflects the economic benefits that can be generated by investing in our transport infrastructure. Cutting waste, reforming the welfare system and scaling back lower priority programmes has enabled us to prioritise spending in order to boost long-term economic growth. That includes an extensive programme of investment in the nation’s transport infrastructure. As the hon. Member for Cheltenham said, it also recognises the importance of addressing climate change by supporting programmes to decarbonise mobility and travel.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham mentioned reform of the appraisal system. As he acknowledged, we have made efforts to reform the New Approach to Appraisal system to put a more realistic price on carbon, and to address the anomalous emphasis on additional fuel duty revenues for the Exchequer being discounted from the overall cost of the project. Further reform is planned, but it is important to reform the system so that we have a more realistic assessment of the carbon impact of different transport choices because we want to choose the projects that are consistent with our climate change goals.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside emphasised the importance of rail services in tackling climate change; I agree and that is why we have made such a major commitment to investment in rail. She also emphasised the importance both to passengers and taxpayers of getting value for money from the railways. She asked me to pre-empt the publication of the McNulty review. I had better not do that, but she will appreciate that one of the key problems that has been identified across the industry is the mismatch between incentives. Aligning incentives more effectively between the train operators and those responsible for maintaining and running the tracks is one possible way in which we can start to reduce costs in the rail industry and put our railways on a more sustainable financial footing. That is essential if we are to deliver value for money for passengers.

We will continue to invest in our road and local transport infrastructure. The spending review confirmed that more than £400 million will be devoted to the uptake of ultra low-carbon vehicles in order to comply with our commitments on climate change and the pressing need to reduce emissions from driving. In his CSR statement to the House, the Chancellor confirmed various important road programmes, including the A11 dualling programme at Thetford, which will generate major economic benefits for the whole of East Anglia and provide the missing link of dual carriageway to connect Norwich to the rest of the country. That got the biggest cheer of the comprehensive spending review debate. On 26 October, the Secretary of State announced a further 16 large-scale road and public transport projects, as well as a fund of more than £600 million for other schemes to be selected from a pool through a bidding process.

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