At dawn on Saturday morning, if the weather is fair, I will join a select group of enthusiasts at Stonehenge, to witness the first sunrise after the Winter Solstice. This is a far more significant occasion than the Summer Solstice. Our ancestors calculated the exact date of the year’s turn, when they could look forward to longer days and the green shoots of spring. They laid out Stonehenge accordingly.

Stonehenge was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1986 and the UNESCO-approved Management Plan was published in April 2000.

The Stones are an instantly recognisable, world-wide symbol of our ancient heritage. Shaped and erected over 3000 years ago, their lintels, unique jointing, and perfect geometry make it the most sophisticated stone circle in the world. But this is about more than stones.

Within this 2,600-hectare site there are over 400 scheduled ancient monuments in a ceremonial landscape that includes The Avenue and The Cursus, as well as nearby Woodhenge. Just to the east lie Durrington Walls. The people who built Stonehenge lived here, in a village with hundreds of houses, and featuring a stone-surfaced avenue. The secrets of Durrington Walls have only recently started to be revealed.

Members of Parliament have to consider the national interest as well as their constituency interests. Similarly, the Government has a duty to consider the implications of their national decisions for local communities.

The November 1995 Planning Conference on Stonehenge and the A303 resulted in 16 resolutions and remarkable consensus among the representatives who attended. Sadly, that national and local consensus has slipped.

Last week in a local survey by Vision-News, our Salisbury On-line TV Station, most people disagreed that the Government was right to cancel the Stonehenge A303 road project and tunnel. In fact only one person interviewed was in favour of cancelling the project.

This surprised me. Although there has been some triumphalism from those who oppose the tunnel project, most people just want something to be done to minimise the negative impact of traffic congestion on their daily lives. They are proud of Stonehenge – but they mind more about getting to work and getting home again across the barrier of the choked A303.

It is outrageous that my constituents in Winterbourne Stoke have been abandoned. They and the villagers of Chicklade are now the only communities between London and the West of England without a by-pass.

If the A344 is closed off, traffic will double on the A360 between Airman’s Corner and Long Barrow Roundabout and it will increase by a third on the A303 past the Stones. Unless my constituents in Orcheston, Tilshead and Shrewton are served by a new junction at Airman’s Corner and an underpass of the A303 at Long Barrow, I believe their Councillors will not agree to the closure of that road.

Objective 11 of the Management Plan requires the removal or screening of the A344 and the A303. There is growing support for the planting of trees along the lengths of both these roads within the World Heritage Site. Please will the Stonehenge Project Board consider this?

The DfT has just saved itself over £500 million and announced that any new money for even minor road improvements must come out of the meagre SW regional road budget. That is totally unacceptable. This is a national issue, settled by a Government decision. Why should people in Devon or Cornwall lose their road improvements to pay for the wreckage of a national road project that until 6th December was in the DfT Budget?

Meanwhile my constituents in Larkhill, Bulford, Durrington and Amesbury will be plagued by rat-running to avoid the gridlock past the Stones. There is increasing evidence of rat-running further south – down the Bourne Valley A338 to Salisbury and then along the A30 Nadder Valley to Hindon.

Please will the Government consider afresh the potential for tolling or shadow tolling a major road improvement for the strategic A303? I have raised this before. Of course I am not talking about toll booths. Smart card or even GPS technology will soon be equal to the challenge. Design, build, finance and operate contracts, with shadow tolling, are now well-tried and could be an attractive option in the medium to long term.

In April 1986 UNESCO said the A344 past the Stones must be rerouted. In November 1986 the UNESCO World Heritage Committee “noted with satisfaction the assurances” that the closure was receiving serious consideration.

In April 2002 UNESCO was told by DCMS that planning consent for the new Visitor Centre would be submitted and the highways consent procedure for the tunnel initiated in December.

In 2003 UNESCO welcomed the decision to construct a bored tunnel and asked for a Report by 1st February 2004. DCMS provided a full Report on 28th May 2004. They asked for another Report by 1st February 2005. It did not come. In the summer of 2005 they asked for an updated report by 1st February 2007. Meanwhile in 2006 they noted that DCMS had provided no timeframe for the Stonehenge Project and that management was weak.

In July this year, the World Heritage Committee received a very brief Report, full of good intentions and saying how difficult it all was. Now we have the Government washing its hands of Stonehenge and leaving it to the Culture Minister to pick up the pieces. I do not doubt her good intentions and determination. She needs all the support she can get.

I say ‘the government’ because I believe this 21-year-old saga represents a systemic failure in the machinery of government. Successive Culture Secretaries have not been powerful enough to obtain Cabinet agreement. Transport Secretaries have always found it easy to give greater priority to other roads. In this case, I understand, the £500 million will go instead to widening the M25. Four Prime Ministers have failed to acknowledge the importance of our national heritage to our culture let alone our tourism and transport needs. Only the Treasury has won every round.

In February 2008 the Minister must report progress to UNESCO following the Government’s decision to abandon the road and the proposed Visitor Centre. At its July meeting, the World Heritage Committee will “fully examine the implication of their decision for the value and integrity of Stonehenge as a World Heritage property”.

Will the Minister confirm this timescale – and say if she expects to submit a revised Management Plan to UNESCO in January 2009?

The Government is already in trouble because it has failed to restrain the encroachment of new, tall buildings on the World Heritage Sites of Westminster and the Tower of London. Only last month UNESCO threatened the delisting of the Dresden Elbe Valley site because of the degrading of the landscape by a new bridge.

It would indeed be a national humiliation if Stonehenge were to be put on the endangered list. I do not think that will happen. I congratulate the Culture Minister and the Transport Minister for calling an emergency meeting on 10th December of the new Stonehenge Project Board to agree terms of reference, to consider options for the future, to decide what are the key issues and what can now be delivered.

It was an eclectic gathering of all the main stakeholders across the South West of England. Crucially the local Planning Authority was absent. This has caused consternation in Salisbury District. Please can the Minister confirm whether or not Salisbury District Council was invited to the meeting? If it was invited, I consider it a dereliction of duty that not a single Councillor or Council Officer could be found to attend.

Looking forward, can the Minister assure me that the starting point for a new beginning must be the existing Management Plan, revised to take account of the new situation?

Will she assure me that she will retain the three long-term objectives, Objectives 1, 2, and 3 - the endorsement of the Management Plan, the improvement of the management and conservation of the cultural landscape and the interpretation of the universal value of the whole World Heritage Site? Will she continue to promote public enjoyment, education and research at Stonehenge?

Under the terms of Objective 14 of the Plan and as a gesture of good intent to UNESCO, will she add to the Site, the unique Parsonage Down National Nature Reserve and Yarnbury Castle, which lie to the west of the Stones?

Can the Minister also tell us how much money the DCMS will contribute to the new Visitor Centre? The Rt Hon lady has done so well to pledge that the Government will have a new Centre up-and-running by 2012. Such a project on such a tight time-scale must be primed with the help of the taxpayer.

English Heritage is already in discussion with the Heritage Lottery Fund – which suddenly has over £20m to spend on something else (the Olympics?). Will the Minister assure us that her Department will give its 100% backing to a lottery bid by English Heritage?

Objective 18 of the Management Plan states that a new world-class Visitor Centre should be secured to act as a gateway to Stonehenge to improve the visitor experience and to encourage the dispersal of visitors around the whole World Heritage Site. Will she maintain that objective?

I said in The House last week that something ‘cheap and cheerful’ will not do. What we are embarking on now is a semi-permanent solution that is likely to last for at least twenty years until a new strategic plan can be agreed. This must be a Visitor Centre of high quality, innovation and vision.

May I recommend that all those involved re-visit the ‘Fargo North Scheme’ published in April 1998? There are well-reasoned arguments why a Centre just north of the A344 and just west of Fargo Plantation is a good site. Much of the transport planning – including designs for new road junctions – has been done. This could considerably shorten time necessary for design work. If the 1998 proposal could be updated to include a grade-separated junction at the Long Barrow junction of the A303 and A360, we might well avoid a Public Planning Enquiry and save at least a year.

UNESCO has always been critical of facilities for interpretation and explanation – and so have I. At least I had the advantage, in my childhood in Salisbury, of spending many hours at the Stones and in the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, which has the best Stonehenge collection in the country.

Under its new Chairman and Director the Salisbury Museum is planning a new ‘Stonehenge Experience’. Given the circumstances we now face, I believe this would provide a golden opportunity for her Department and English Heritage to join forces with the Museum (which the Minister visited with me in September) to create a world-class exhibition and learning experience, that could be in service within two years, well ahead of possible delivery at Stonehenge and only a stones-throw away. It would also represent good value for money, at about £1.5m.

Already thousands of visitors combine Stonehenge with the English Heritage site at Old Sarum and with Salisbury Cathedral. In 2008 our Cathedral celebrates its 750th anniversary and there will be new reasons for visitors to combine these sites – and also visit local National Trust properties including Mompesson House. There is also early discussion about the nomination of our incomparable Salisbury Cathedral Close as a future World Heritage Site.

Now is the time for us all to work together to ensure that Stonehenge becomes more than a tourist destination – it becomes a wonderful experience for all those who marvel at mankind’s ancient footprint on our land and yearn to understand more of our humanity.

Christmas is upon us now. All of us – even, dare I say it, English Heritage and the National Trust - should find a large bunch of mistletoe and pledge undying friendship in the interests of Stonehenge.