Don Foster

Liberal Democrats | Bath

The Liberal Democrat critique

This speech was given to the 6th UK Chairs of Transport Conference.

Today it's the 6th Conference of its type. If I remember rightly, about this time last year, there was a 5th Conference. Even then, the 10 Year Plan was in danger of being derailed. But at least there was hope with a new Secretary of State for Transport in Alistair Darling. So what has he done to restore confidence in our transport systems?

The last year has seen some positive measures. Examples include turning the lamented and failing Railtrack into a not-for-profit, public interest company and reducing the number of train operating company franchises. Both, incidentally, were Liberal Democrat proposals.

But Alistair Darling's key aim has been to keep transport out of the news. Even with this simple task he's failed. And he admits it. As he said in Parliament two weeks ago:

“if there were a policy of attempting to bury bad news on the railways, it has been singularly unsuccessful.”

Alistair Darling has been keeping his head below the parapet. But he can't afford to. If he were to glimpse over it he would see an alarming scene of a transport system creaking at the seams.

On the roads, congestion continues its “remorseless” rise. And Alistair Darling has now admitted that the ten year plan targets to reduce congestion will not be met.

On buses, outside of London, passenger numbers have fallen by 10% since Labour came to power.

In the same time rail passenger train delays have doubled and cancellations are up by half.

After a gradual growth in traffic, rail freight has faltered. Only today we read of the loss of Royal Mail's business from rail and back onto our congested roads. This can't have been helped by the totally crazy decision to freeze rail freight grants.

We've seen expensive Multi-Modal studies have their guts ripped out. Often the road proposals have been allowed to go ahead without any of the other – especially public transport boosting measures – getting a look in.

And in aviation, the Government's current consultation on airport expansion is deeply flawed. Not only do they appear to have returned to the old, failed “predict and provide” approach but they also use predictions which bizarrely assume that after 2030 we'll need to build a new Heathrow every three years!

And that's just a quick glance. If Alistair took a really good look over the parapet, the view would be even bleaker.

We could take any mode of transport. But let's, as an example, take rail.

Not only are cancellations and delays making a mockery of Government reliability aims, but we have some of the most expensive fares in the world. The most expensive in Europe. Four times more expensive than in Italy. Seven times more expensive than Czech fares. And later this month, it appears, Alistair is to announce huge fare increases! After five years of the government promoting a “secure station” scheme, out of 2,500 railway stations, the number to sign up is only 140. So much for creating, what I want to see, a safe, reliable and affordable railway.

Other bodies, too, are not immune from criticism. While I welcomed the establishment of Network Rail, I'm deeply worried by their current track-side tree-felling programme. They are cutting down an area of woodland the size of the Forest of Dean with little or no consultation with residents or local councils.

Another body whose establishment I welcomed is the SRA. But it, too, causes me concern. There's been a huge growth in the size of the SRA and in the number of consultants it employs. At the same time, it's telling everyone else in the industry to get their costs down! And, at times, it's a difficult body to get information from. Recently I wanted to know what criteria the SRA uses in deciding which TOC to give a franchise to. I got a very clear and comprehensive answer from the government;

“The SRA uses a variety of criteria for assessing which companies are short-listed for passenger franchises.”

In other words, we decide and we're not telling you how.

So, if Alistair looked over the parapet at our railways, he'd have real cause for concern. Indeed, that concern would continue if he looked at any mode of transport. No wonder that 81% of the public feel that the government is failing to deliver on transport.

So what needs to happen?

Crucially, all of those involved in transport have to work with Alistair Darling and help him with two vital tasks.

First, we have to persuade him that his review of the Ten Year Plan must lead to a radical overhaul. The current plan is already totally off the rails; targets have been missed or dropped, priorities have been changed and the public has lost confidence.

A new plan must be developed in which the government, local councils, the private sector – on whom we depend so much – and the public at large can have confidence. A plan which we know the government means to stick to so that those who want to prepare long term investment in transport can do so without fear of the type of U-turn we saw with the freezing of rail freight grants. A Plan which gives local councils a clear framework but also the freedom within which they can develop their own solutions to local problems and have the resources to implement them.

And second, we have to help Alistair make his case to the Treasury for the 2004 Spending Review. It is surely now clear to everyone that we have got to tackle the years of neglect and under-investment in our transport infrastructure. Surely the time has now come to get not just Alistair Darling's head above the parapet but to get the whole government committed to a new deal for transport.

Achieving both of these won't be easy. Many things will have to be sorted.

First, we must be able to demonstrate that we are getting real value for money invested in public transport – not least on our railways. There must be a determined effort to get costs under control. It can't be right – according to Alistair Darling himself – that it costs four times more to build a lift shaft on our railways than to build an identical lift shaft in any other situation. How can we be spending a fortune on Rugby Station when it was rebuilt only 3 years ago. Why are track maintenance and renewal costs so high? Is it because everyone has gone over board on safety standards? Is it because of the way the industry is structure? Are there too many sub-contractors on the line? Whatever the cause, we need to get better value for money.

Second, we need to be willing to make what Sir Humphrey used to call “courageous decisions”. We won't avoid building numerous new Heathrows without introducing demand management measures which – among other things – will increase the cost of flying. We won't really tackle road congestion without measures like congestion charging and road pricing.

Brave attempts to tackle congestion have been few and far between. London's congestion charging scheme has been a great success and I congratulate Ken Livingstone and his team. As a result, Peter Hendy and his London bus team have now got the highest number of passengers since 1969 and the highest operating mileage since 1963. Fantastic results. But, so far, few have been prepared to follow suit.

But equally, we have to take the public with us. This means a far better campaign to explain the benefits of some of these “courageous decisions”. My own local authority, Bath and Northeast Somerset council, took the brave decision to introduce a “priority access point” (or bus gate) in the city centre in Bath. It was the right decision. But it created a great deal of unrest because – and I apologise to members and officers present – we simply didn't sell the measure adequately to the public. Public support can be won, but gaining it needs to be an integral part of the implementation of any such scheme.

Third, we need to recognise that here in the UK we already have numerous examples of good practice. There isn't the need to be constantly re-inventing the wheel. Last night's Transport Awards showed that there are numerous innovative and exciting ways of boosting public transport use, reducing congestion and improving local environments.

I was especially struck by those schemes which provide improved information about existing public transport services. I still think we could go further and, for example, do more to explain how public transport works. In Perth, in Australia, the local council didn't have much extra to spend on improving public transport. But they argued that many people simply didn't know how to use the existing services. After a major campaign to educate them, ridership went up by 14%. It can be done.

So we need to get better at sharing good practice both from this country and abroad.

Fourth, we need to make sure we are focusing on those issues where we can really make a difference. Personally I'd like to see a campaign that eliminates those road hogs who sit in the centre lanes of motorways; turning a three lane motorway into just two. Before we build more roads, let's make better use of the ones we've got. But rather than my personal hobby-horse, why can't we be doing more to tackle that scourge of congestion – the school run.

With an estimated 20% of traffic congestion during the rush hour caused by parents driving children to school, urgent action is now needed.

Last night I was analysing some new figures I've just got out of the government. They show;

• For the first time ever, less than half of all trips made by under-17s to school are made by walking.
• The proportion of school journeys by bus, cycling and other non-car use has also fallen.
• The proportion of school journeys by car has rocketed. (up from 12% in the mid-70s to 30% today).
• There are now a staggering 2.2 billion passenger car miles a year devoted to the school run with an average journey distance of less than 3 miles.

Worse, more than a quarter of school children are driven less than a mile to school at a time when we learn that obesity levels among adults in England have almost tripled since 1980. Studies suggest that up to 10% of six year olds may now be obese; a doubling in the past 10 years.

If all the children driven less than a mile to school decided to walk instead, the national would shed 3.1million lbs – and that's the equivalent of more than 200,000 John Prescotts!

Tackling the school run should be an urgent priority for every local council.

And thinking locally is my fifth action point. We desperately need to persuade the government to give greater freedom, responsibility and resources to our local councils. Very many are already demonstrating that they can play a crucial role in meeting the government's and the nation's ambitions for an improved – and crucially – integrated transport system. The Awards last night proved that.

But, helping local councils deliver will mean a number of changes. For example, we still have to resolve the ludicrous conflicts between the Transport Act and the Competition Act. One says that local councils can develop Quality Partnerships with local public transport providers while the other effectively prevents councils and providers getting together for fear of an anti-competitive deal being stitched up. The obvious solution is to reconsider the whole de-regulation question. I referred earlier to the successes inside London. But they're successes where there's still a fair degree of regulation. Passenger Transport Authorities, too, have been successful because of their wider powers. I was delighted to learn that all the parties on the LGA have signed up to moves to press for a return to more regulation. I fully support such moves.

Indeed, I would go further. Building on the successes of the PTAs and Transport for London and on the belated but welcome faltering steps towards regionalisation, I would like to see the establishment of strong Regional Transit Authorities. Working in partnership with local councils these RTAs (like the Verbunds in Germany) would have the crucial strategic transport planning role and be able to commission public transport services – as the SRA currently does for trains.

So, we need to control costs and be courageous. We have to get better at sharing best practice, focus on issues where we really can make a difference and boost opportunities for greater action at a local level.

We must help Alistair Darling develop a new transport plan in which we can all have confidence – a plan that, unlike the present one, can stand the test of time. And, by building the case for a successful outcome in the Spending Review, ensure that by next year we have turned the corner and the time for transport has arrived.

If we can achieve all that, with confidence, Alistair will be able to lift his head well above the parapet and we'll start to get Britain back on the move again.