During a debate on Transport Strategy, Charles Walker fears that the recently published Eddington report, the eighth such report in nine years, is merely time-filling by a government which has no solution to transport problems such as overcrowded trains.

Mr. Walker: Given that this is the eighth such document in nine years, is my hon. Friend confident that its recommendations will be carried through, or does she think that it is just more time-filling by a Government who are very short of ideas about what to do to ease current problems?

Mrs. Miller: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, but he is, I think, being rather fair-minded to the Government by suggesting that that is their intention. My Basingstoke constituents might have a slightly different spin on that when they look at the amount of house building that is required in north Hampshire and then look at the dearth of funding that follows that centrally driven Government target. The amount of reports, White Papers and documentation that has been produced on the sector under discussion seems to mask a confusion, inconsistency and short-sightedness in transport planning; that is certainly the case in my area of the country.

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