Prescott defends DOT
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• Deputy Prime Minister and senior Transport Minister John Prescott has condemned criticisms of his department published in the recent Transport Select Committee report as "careless" and "ill-founded".
In a 20-page rebuke Prescott accuses the committee of failing to ''take account of evidence
made available in the Department of Transport report and elsewhere".
Rejecting accusations that the DOT has made "few tangible improvements", Prescott contends that the report "chooses to ignore" areas of progress. He includes road building and maintenance under the list of improvements with "19 road bypasses announced" and more than £400m a year extra being spent on road maintenance".
The response also singles out "an increase of nearly a fifth in domestic rail freight, saving more than 1.8 million lorry trips in the past two years."
Commenting on the response, committee chairman Gwyneth Dunwoody claims: "The report is not meant to be a personal attack on John Prescott."
She dismisses accusations that the report's recommendations are "ill-founded", claiming: "Our report was based on detailed evidence and when the Commons reassembles in a few weeks' time, we will look carefully at the DOTs response."