Transport Insights

Roads minister Simon Lightwood, who was complicit in hiding the smart motorway evaluation reports and seems to have gone into politics to hide things from the public, has blanked a question from an MP about safety spending under the new road investment strategy (RIS).

Asked by Helen Morgan how much money is committed to the Safety National Programme and Small Schemes National Programme elements of the RIS, Lightwood said:

RIS3 included for the first time a set of four National Programmes, which are a new way for National Highways to deliver defined outputs that support RIS3 objectives, where these are not funded in other programmes. Details of the funding for each National Programme will be confirmed in National Highways’ Delivery Plan for 2026-31, which is expected to be published in the summer.

It’s worth unpicking this to see how evasive Lightwood is being. The RIS, written by his department, is literally a strategy for spending on the strategic road network. Its purpose is to give National Highways a budget and tell it, Parliament and the public how it should be spent.

Lightwood knows how much is in the budget for the Safety and Small Schemes National Programmes but is simply choosing to hide this.

According to the Office of Rail and Road, National Highways’ draft strategic business plan had £342m budgeted for the Safety National Programme and £131m for Small Schemes.

While the safety programme has a defined output of 18 schemes out of 24 identified, the small schemes programme does not even have an output.

As I reported here, it was in response to an earlier question from Morgan that ministers confirmed that there would be a Safety National Programme. In response to a question about the Llynclys Crossroads in Morgan’s constituency, Lilian Greenwood told her:

Improvements to the route are being considered for delivery as part of the Safety National Programme within RIS3, which is due to be published later in March.

The Llynclys Crossroads does appear to be one of 24 schemes on a map on page 67 of the RIS but you can imagine why Morgan might want to know more about this programme, including whether there is enough funding to do 18 schemes, or whether it might have to be the 18 cheapest schemes.

How churlish it was for Lightwood to give her such an opaque answer.