It’s not unusual to see contradictory policy positions across government when it comes to transport, but I’d hoped for better
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, seems willing to grab at any private finance that is around for transport projects, even if this runs contrary to government policy on, for example, climate change
August is traditionally regarded as the silly season in politics, a time when MPs are away on their breaks, when nothing much happens, and when the papers are full of banal and slightly absurd stories that would never make the cut the rest of the year.
This August, however, was quite busy, to a large extent as the consequences of the general election taking place in July, the first July election since 1945.
We had the rapid settlement between the government and ASLEF, one where the train companies were entirely shunted into the sidings, it seems. I congratulate Mick Whelan, the union’s general secretary. He is an intelligent and canny operator who impressed me when I met him. Not only did he secure a sizeable increase for his members, but did so without giving any ground on the case to update often past-their-sell-by-date terms and conditions. A sweeping victory for ASLEF.
The government argued that it was vital to get the trains running again strike-free, and so it was, but at what cost? The ink was barely dry on the rail equivalent of the Treaty of Versailles when a series of strikes was announced on state-run LNER, and the RMT, who had settled with the last government, started making noises about parity with ASLEF. It all made the new government look rather naïve and foolish.
Happily, the proposed LNER strikes have now been suspended and it would be interesting to know what back room deal was agreed to achieve that.
Over the summer, I used LNER to get from London to Aberdeen and back. I was impressed by the service, everything from the new Azuma rolling stock to the food, from the staff to the timekeeping. We arrived in Aberdeen only a few minutes late, largely due to an unexplained extended stop at Inverkeithing where I had the chance to examine at length a not very interesting platform. The return trip was on time.
Talking of punctuality, I note the recent reports in the media that taking the yardstick of PPM (allowing a train to be “on time” if actually less than five minutes late, or 10 minutes for an intercity train), punctuality has taken a nosedive since late 2013, coincidentally no doubt at the point when I stopped being rail minister. In 2013 it was over 90% while PPM compliance under Rishi Sunak was down to 85.5%.
In fact, I was always keener to use “right time”, arrival within 59 seconds of the published arrival time, which of course gives an even less flattering outcome. When a minister, I wanted right time to replace PPM, a suggestion that was strongly opposed by the industry and which my fellow rail minister Theresa Villiers was nervous about. I was not in the mood to give up, however, and aware that the information was held by the publicly accountable Office of Rail & Road, I asked a friend to submit an FoI request to them. A little while later, my slightly flustered civil servants came to inform me of this request and suggested we should release the information ourselves ahead of the FoI being answered so as to appear to be in control of events. I gravely agreed.
A joined-up government should ensure its policy interventions all point the same way
Much of the deterioration in punctuality can be laid at the door of Network Rail whose chair, Peter Hendy, has now of course become the rail minister. A useful piece of research from the Lib Dems revealed that since 2018/19, passengers suffered a loss of 988,419 minutes (or 686 days) due to 37,000 signal failures on the network, generating nearly 15,000 cancellations. Is anyone doing anything about this?
Meanwhile I make no apologies for pointing out yet again the contradictory policy positions adopted across government when it comes to transport. The fact that this is not new is of little comfort, but I had hoped for better from the new administration.
On the most basic level, they maintain they want growth, indeed that growth is the only way to lift us out of the morass left by the last lot. Yet the prime minister and chancellor seem determined to take decisions that inhibit that growth.
The government is desperate for new investment and ought to be looking to see how we can again access funds from the European Investment Bank that bankrolled many projects before we left the EU.
Even Eurosceptics will now quietly concede that Brexit has been a disaster, losing us about 4% of GDP, creating mountains of red tape for business, and weakening significantly our pull in the world. Yet Starmer will not even contemplate reopening the door for our young people to work and study in EU countries, the softest of agreements to reach. Instead he talks about refining Brexit – in Yes, Minister terms, that’s every possible assistance short of actual help.
He should look again at rejoining the customs union and the single market, championed, let us remember, by Margaret Thatcher. And while a narrow 52-48 margin voted for Brexit, many who did so wanted us to stay in the single market. Only a minority wanted the hard Brexit we ended up with.
His chancellor is busy cancelling infrastructure projects that would create jobs. Previous Labour chancellors, including Gordon Brown, saw the logic in borrowing to invest. That should include taking HS2 to both Crewe and Euston, notwithstanding the catastrophic mismanagement of the project to date. I note, incidentally, that £20m has been spent on tunnelling equipment to take the line to Euston and this is in danger of sitting underground unused if the line to Euston is not built, a lasting monument to incompetence and political dithering.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, instead seems to be following in the footsteps of George Osborne when it comes to Treasury penny-pinching. She also seems willing to grab at any private finance that is around for transport projects, even if this runs contrary to government policy on, for example, climate change.
“We’re in a climate crisis,” said the transport secretary Louise Haigh, as she set out her plans to increase walking and cycling. Nobody seems to have told the chancellor, however, who is casting around for private money to build the carbon-busting £9bn Lower Thames Crossing, the idea being that the private sector would be allowed to impose tolls to recoup its investment. If it goes ahead, the carbon generated by this scheme will dwarf anything saved by Louise Haigh’s active travel plans.
His chancellor is busy cancelling infrastructure projects that would create jobs
Apart from the undesirability of creating more road space, someone at the Treasury needs to draw Reeves’s attention to the Humber Bridge or the M6 toll road. In essence, set the charges too high and drivers will not use the road and you will never get your money back. Set them too low and you will never get your money back. As a minister, I ended the fiction, some 55 years on, that the Humber Bridge was ever going to recoup its investment through tolls.
August also saw Angela Rayner showing eagerness to accept private investment irrespective of its wider consequences for government policy. She overruled the Labour council in Newham to allow an increase in flights from London City airport. This is despite the fact that 54% of existing journeys from the airport could be accomplished in less than six hours by train. It is perhaps all too predictable that Stewart Wingate, the boss of Gatwick Airport, sees a window of opportunity to get approval for a second runway.
July saw a record 7.98 million passengers using Heathrow, but then the growth in numbers there and elsewhere at UK airports is hardly surprising with the last government’s cut in Air Passenger Duty nudging people onto planes. I see the Advertising Standards Authority has banned a Virgin Atlantic ad for making misleading claims about the environmental impact of so-called sustainable aviation fuels. So much for Jet Zero.
The government should be concerned by the growth in aviation numbers, not welcoming and facilitating it.
Perhaps some good can come from Rachel Reeves’s penny-pinching if her first budget reverses that APD (Air Passenger Duty) cut, and ends the nonsense of a freeze on fuel duty.
What the “tough choices” in the budget should not include is a yet further hike in rail fares – a link to July’s inflation figure would produce a fare increase across the board of 3.6%.
Nor should the budget abandon the £2 bus fare which has been so successful, not least because of its simplicity. As things stand, the scheme is due to end in December.
A joined-up government should ensure its policy interventions all point the same way. At the moment, they look like cancelling each other out. When the question is not ‘what is the government’s transport policy?’, but ‘what is the Department for Transport’s policy, what is No 11’s policy, and what is No 10’s policy?’, then there is a problem.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Norman Baker served as transport minister from May 2010 until October 2013. He was Lib Dem MP for Lewes between 1997 and 2015.
This story appears inside the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
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The post Mixed messages on transport policy first appeared on Passenger Transport.