Dunwoody takes revenge with attack on speed camera curbs

Gwyneth Dunwoody will hit back at the Government this week with a transport select committee report that calls on the police to retain "spy cameras" to catch speeding drivers.

Mrs Dunwoody, who told The Independent on Sunday last week that she was being subjected to a smear campaign to silence her criticism, is fighting to retain her position as chairman of the committee.

The report this week will be seen as a warning shot to the Government that she will not be silenced. It takes ministers to task for failing to do more to reduce fatalities on the roads by cracking down on speeding motorists.

The report will criticise ministers for telling police forces to make speed cameras more noticeable by painting them yellow, and will call for more measures to make drivers slow down in built-up areas. It is also expected to call for speed limits to be reduced from 60mph to 40mph on minor C-roads and to 50mph on B-roads.

Mrs Dunwoody sees the report as a challenge to the male-dominated Commons to back the committee's conclusions. Most MPs drive to their constituencies every weekend, and some frequently complain about speed traps.

Ministers confirmed the Ios report that they are planning to use the reform of Whitehall in the reshuffle to change the composition of her committee. She has told friends she believes she could still be removed as the chairman, but she wants to protect some of the Labour members who have backed her reports.

One of those tipped to replace her, Labour MP Helen Jackson, last week wrote an article in Tribune criticising the way the committee had been hijacked by the Tories. Ministers were furious with Mrs Dunwoody for allegedly using the committee's report on the 10-year transport plan to attack the Government when it was most vulnerable. She was accused of stabbing Stephen Byers in the back, a day before he resigned as transport secretary.

However, his successor, Alistair Darling, is facing fresh pressure from his own backbenchers to bring the maintenance of the railways under direct public control after a call for renationalisation by Nina Bawden, the author and one of the survivors of the Potters Bar crash.

The Labour MP John Cryer tabled two Commons motions attacking the past record of Jarvis, the maintenance contractors in charge of the line at the Potters Bar crash-site. He called on Mr Darling to ensure that Network Rail, the successor to Railtrack, ends the system of subcontracting by putting its own workforce in charge of maintenance work.