Some take away’s from the Transport Committee: The roll-out and safety of smart motorways, HC 26 (Wednesday 30 June 2021)
Number 2
Mike Penning’s claim to have been misled “not one that really stands up to very much scrutiny”
Chair (Huw Merriman): Mike Penning, the [former] roads Minister, maintains that he signed off on the concept of smart motorways based on, I think, the M62 design, and therefore the spacing of the bays was very much on that basis and not with as much distance as is now in place. What do you have to say about his recollection? …This is a ministerial decision, not the Select Committee. Baroness Vere, is he wrong? It is a simple question.
Baroness Vere: Let’s have a tiny look back. I really did not want to go through all of this, but I think it is worth establishing where we are with all of this. At the end of the last Labour Government, in 2009, they announced £6 billion of managed motorways…. Then we had the coalition Government. There was a shift to managed motorways 2, as they were called. This was when the all-lane running concept was put before Ministers. At that stage, the Secretary of State was Philip Hammond and the roads Minister was Mike Penning. That was the concept that was put to them then. It was not a dynamic hard shoulder concept. It was managed motorways 2.
It was then decided that would be the concept taken forward. Again, that was reiterated at one and a half mile EA spacing in October/November 2011. What happened in 2013—Stephen Hammond was the roads Minister—was that it was reiterated.
Chair: Just to recap, you believe that every ministerial decision has been made with the correct information having been put to the Minister by Highways England?
Mr Bradshaw: May I quote Mike Penning to you, Minister? He said last year that he was misled. He signed off a model that was based on the M42, I think…Are you saying that he was not misled, Minister?
Baroness Vere: Obviously, I have not seen the paperwork that Mike Penning had. Mike Penning obviously came in at the start of the coalition Government. The concept that was put in front of him was not identical to the M42. It was not a dynamic hard shoulder. It was a very different concept. It was called managed motorways. It was a whole different concept. I don’t know—he said, she said: we are going back 10 years. I am quite clear as to what was decided by the Secretary of State. Obviously, Mike Penning was the roads Minister, but the Secretary of State would have had the information. Managed motorways became managed motorways 2, and that was then taken forward, which is what we have now….