This debate is entitled on the Order Paper "Roads in Manchester". I am glad to have the opportunity to point out to the Minister that that is a misprint. It should have read, "Roads in Greater Manchester". The Minister will know from private conversations that roads have been the subject of a great deal of controversy in my constituency and in the constituencies of other hon. Members. I refer of course to the Greater Manchester western and northern relief road, a subject with which the Minister has been made familiar over several months.

I hope that the Minister will accept that the wrong wording of the title was unintentional on my part, and that the courtesy that I have extended to him covers the point. I want to avoid being accused of the same devious tactics that the Department of Transport has practised thus far in this sorry affair.

The Greater Manchester western and northern relief road has caused great anger, partly because of the nature of the beast and partly because of the secrecy surrounding its promotion. The Minister and others have drawn attention to so-called leaks of information about possible routes. They have accused activists of blighting property and they have tried to draw a series of red herrings across the debate. I shall try to generate more light than heat by raking over the embers of this unfortunate tale.

The relief road first appeared in the public domain as a schematic dotted line that ran through the White Paper "Roads for Prosperity" in June 1989. During the following summer recess, my studies of the document got me worried about the dotted line, which dissected my constituency through its most sensitive environmental part—he village of Worsley in particular. In short, it put a line through a conservation area.

I set about tabling a long series of parliamentary questions in the hope of finding out the Department's intentions. The answers to those questions were models of civil service-speak. Although answers were given, they were, in the now hackneyed phrase, given with a degree of economy with the truth. What I found most unacceptable was the notion that, while a £300 million relief road was in prospect, the widening of the existing M62 was the principal focus for Department of Transport planners. It was only when the existence of the A556 improvements came to my attention that the scale of the problem for my constituents became apparent. This is where the major deception arises.

I have never been given a satisfactory explanation by the Minister or his predecessor of why a major motorway should be planned in three distinct phases. I cannot escape the conclusion that it was done to deceive the public. That became clearer to me when I discovered that the first section, the M6 to the M56, which was billed as an improvement to the A556, went out to public consultation as long ago as 1 November 1989. People believed that they were being consulted about a localised road improvement scheme. They were not disabused of that view and it was not until January 1990, when my parliamentary questions became public knowledge, that the Department of Transport's real intentions were recognised. The tactic became clear and later in my speech I shall deal with its subsequent refinement.

The strategy was to prosecute the plan in three stages. The southern section was to be first, followed by the northern section. Then the middle section, which affects my constituency, was to be built. As soon as the two outer sections, dealt with months apart, were determined, the controversial middle section would have had its start and finish thoroughly circumscribed. Thankfully, with the cat well and truly out of the bag in January 1990, opposition groups sprang up all along the route and they are now conducting an intelligent and energetic campaign of opposition to the Department's intentions. My thanks and those of my constituents are due to councillors Davies and Stirling, who are leading forces in the Residents Against the Motorway group, and to Chris Gray, Ian Bailey, John Spink, David Cowpe and Bob Boyd who are working in various ways to present local opposition to the destructive intent of the Department. Their efforts deserve to be placed on the record and I am pleased to do that.

Having dealt with the secrecy and duplicity of the Department, I now turn to the question of need. My view, which is shared by many, is that the motorway that the Department is keen to promote is entirely unnecessary. If the £300 million, which will no doubt be more than doubled by the time of completion, were to be given to the local authorities to enable them to organise their own traffic management schemes, one justification would be removed at a stroke. At the same time, it would help if the Minister were to invest through local authorities and the passenger transport executive in decent 21st century public transport.

It might make more sense if the Minister's colleague further down Marsham street, the Secretary of State for the Environment, stopped the crazy building of peripheral housing schemes to be filled with city commuters. It would certainly be more sensible if sites closer to city centres were made more attractive. That would breathe life into decaying urban areas and obviate the need for millions of car journeys a year. That, in turn, would prevent the vandalism that is being proposed and which has already caused so much anguish.

I have been asked many times recently, "Why more motorways?" Why put at risk what little remaining woodland and open space we have in the north-west? What has happened to the Government's professed adherence to green policies? The Minister is better placed than Ito answer those questions, but it is my view that the problem of motorway demand' lies firmly in the Department of Transport which is gripped by roads mania. The Department has 12,500 road planners and only 125 public transport planners. No wonder the solutions are always to build more roads.

These new roads and the extra traffic that they are supposed to accommodate will cause serious damage to the local and global environment and they will undermine any pretence by the Government to promote environmental protection measures. The full forecast of traffic increase will be generated only if the roads are built. I reject the need for this road, as do most of my constituents. Experience of the past 20 years or more tells us that this type of motorway will significantly injure the amenity of the area.

Experience tells us also that the Department of Transport is an extremely slippery customer in its dealings with the public. I have to refer only to the confidence trick that has been played on, and added to in dealings with, residents in the Farm lane area of my constituency. In the early 1960s, a bypass was built to avoid Eccles and Swinton. It was known always as the Eccles bypass. Over time plans changed or there were additions. That happened to such an extent that a fairly insignificant piece of road became part of the M62 trans-Yorkshire motorway. My constituents in the Farm lane area were never compensated properly for that construction, which took place by attrition. A bitter taste remains that will be significant in the battle to stop the latest piece of motorway madness.

I return briefly to leaks, information and disorientation. It is sad that much of the public knowledge of the Greater Manchester western and northern relief road has had to he gained through leaks. It is my duty, however, to puncture the official secrecy that exists, on whatever pretext that may be.

I freely admit that the latest piece of information does not affect my constituency, but it bears on the way in which the opposition is engaged. It is no secret that the protest groups to which I have referred are in regular contact. It is no secret also that each of them obtains information from a variety of sources, with sometimes surprising results. The latest piece of information is no exception. It seems that the consultants have produced an alternative route in one part of the northern section of the road. I understand that it includes a bizarre proposal to cut and cover through a neighbouring town.

I am interested in the politics that has led to an alternative route. I am certain that it involves an exercise in dividing the opposition. The intention is clear. The plan is to divide communities as much as possible all along the route and so dissipate the objections. This will not work. Throughout the route every constituency and every threatened part of each constituency contains a growing protest movement. The opposition is becoming more proficient and it seeks the same success as that which was enjoyed by objectors in London. The Minister knows about that because he represents a London constituency. After 10 years of struggle, massive motorway proposals were ditched, possibly for electoral reasons.

I shall conclude by posing four questions, which I hope the Minister will do his best to answer. First, when will the promised consultation with the public take place? Secondly, will there be an environmental impact assessment study? Thirdly, will the public be given choices of routes, and a further choice of no motorway at all? Fourthly, will the Minister contemplate my suggestion of improved public transport and local traffic management investment?