Examination of witnesses (Questions 671
- 679)
WEDNESDAY 20 JANUARY 1999
RT HON
JOHN PRESCOTT,
MP, RT
HON DR
JOHN REID,
MP and MR
DAVID FISK
Chairman
671. Good morning, Deputy Prime Minister.
We are grateful to you for coming this morning with your Minister
and your officials. Can I ask you to introduce yourself for the
record.
(Mr Prescott) Yes, thank you, Chairman, with a
few introductory remarks that I think you are inviting me to make.
They will be limited and no doubt you will want more time for
the questioning. May I say how much I welcome the Committee's
examination of our Integrated Transport White Paper. I am joined
today by my colleague, the Minister for Transport, John Reid,
and indeed the new head of our Central Strategy Directorate, David
Fisk, who is on my left, who is responsible for overseeing the
implementation of our integrated transport policy as indicated
in the White Paper. I appreciate the opportunity to say a few
words about that—it is almost six months to the day that
I launched the Integrated Transport White Paper—and to answer
your questions on how we are taking it forward. I would like to
take the opportunity to express my appreciation, and indeed the
Government's and the Department's appreciation, for the work done
by this Committee which has helped us formulate those proposals
in the White Paper, particularly the work that was done on the
Strategic Rail Authority which was in detail and the sort of thing
Government ministers like to receive when it is worked out and
supported in the most unanimous way it was by the people who gave
evidence to your Committee and in the conclusions. This New Deal
for Transport forms a vital part of the Government's strategy
for the environment, providing the means to deliver the air quality
on CO2 emissions, which we put together on our transport, a good,
efficient, clean transport system with environmental objectives
which are equally as important as formulating this transport policy.
We must tackle the consequences of transport for the efficiency
of our economy, for the importance of our health and indeed for
the better environment solution. We are absolutely committed to
ensuring that integrated transport becomes a reality. The White
Paper marked a radical change in policy because continuing as
we had been was really not an option. We now have, for the first
time in 20 years, a strategic framework for extending choice and
delivering a transport system that is safe, clean, efficient and
available to everybody and will make a real contribution to our
national and global environmental considerations. It is clear
that there is widespread support for the overall aims and objectives
of our policy. Therefore, I very much welcome the support that
has been expressed from all those who have a key part in making
it happen, including those who have already given evidence to
this inquiry. I was much encouraged by the work that is going
on across the country to help achieve these objectives, for example,
as I know some evidence has been given to this Committee, by companies
who are exploiting the potential of rail freight. In these first
six months now we have seen an increase of 16 per cent in rail
freight compared with the same period last year built on twelve
per cent last year, and the pioneering approach taken in cities
such as York and Edinburgh.
672. I am sorry, could you close the door?
If we are going to be burnt to death it will become obvious in
due course.
(Mr Prescott) As the person in charge of safety
that is a comforting thought.
673. I am sure you would save us all first,
Deputy Prime Minister.
(Mr Prescott) I am tempted to say should we not
leave now. Indeed, these companies have given considerable evidence
of planning approaches in some of our cities and the transport
modes of the improvements we can expect. This support is essential
as Government on its own will not be able to achieve these changes
that are necessary to deliver integrated transport in practice.
I am sure you are well aware that Government can provide frameworks
but it really is up to the commitment and the contribution of
all those different people responsible for decisions made on transport
modes, whether in local authorities or indeed in rail companies
or bus companies. Everybody has their part to play: Government
departments, business and transport operators, local authorities,
and all of us particularly as individuals because we are seeking
to change attitudes and cultures about the way we transport ourselves
from A to B. We have a clear objective to try and get people to
use their cars less and to use public transport more. That is
at the heart of the objectives of the paper. Much has been said
at least about the absence of a Transport Bill, and as I have
said before only ten out of the 80 recommendations in the White
Paper need primary legislation but of course they are an important
ten points for legislation, some of them we have already secured.
I sit on the legislation committee of this Government and I am
aware of all the pressing priorities for every piece of legislation
to meet those objectives and we are heavily influenced by its
five year programme and legislation have different orders of priority
for delivery and that has been reflected in the legislation committee.
I am pleased to say that we have got those priorities right and
there is action on many of the most important of those ten proposals
which are recommended in the White Paper. There are powers for
road user charging and workplace parking levy in the Greater London
Authority Bill. We are pressing ahead with drafting the Bill to
set up the Strategic Rail Authority which may well be presented
this session and we are hopeful of that but that is not entirely
in our control as Members of this Committee will know. At the
same time we are well under way nevertheless with the setting
up of the shadow rail authority with the new regulator and new
Franchising Director and establishing the Commission for Integrated
Transport to take forward the debate and most of this will be
done by the spring period. By the end of this year, much of the
structure for implementing our transport policy will be in place
and we will see the first local plans showing how integrated transport
will be achieved at the local level, supported by some of the
extra £1.8 billion of funding for integrated transport. I
am happy to expand on any of these matters and questions. I just
want to stress now that our transport policy is sufficiently flexible
to evolve in the light of these developments and that is why we
will be keen to see whatever recommendations arise from your inquiry
in the process of implementing our policy.
674. That is very helpful, Deputy Prime
Minister. So we can take it that when you have hit the newspapers
today as being somebody whose plans are usually ignored by Tony
Blair, that is not necessarily going to be the fate either of
you or of your White Paper?
(Mr Prescott) No, I do not think so. He is fully
supportive of that. We always get a lot of journalists' prattle
about these matters that we have to live with.
Dr Whitehead
675. Could I take you straight to a particular
issue, the framework that you have mentioned that the Department
could set up to help local authorities particularly to implement
a number of the requirements in the White Paper, and that is the
whole question of workplace parking rates and a local authority's
ability to provide those and the constraints they suffer in terms
of not being able to do that in out of town locations. Where an
urban authority may charge an out of town authority may not charge.
We have received considerable evidence that appears to be something
that is likely to cause traffic to go out of town. In places like
my City of Southampton it appears unlikely that the local authority
will do this because they are afraid that the authorities around
will not levy a charge and that will be detrimental to the city's
wellbeing.
(Mr Prescott) There are important concerns about
change and uncertainties. I think exactly the same was said about
inner city pedestrianisation, many of the businesses were against
it but most of them would not have it any other way now because
pedestrianisation has made it much easier and more enjoyable to
go to the shops and enter the town centres. It has been a real
problem in regard to out of town shopping for a number of reasons.
One, of course, is that has drawn a lot of people to get into
their cars and go to the out of town shops. Already we are beginning
to see considerable congestion on our strategic motorways, whether
on the M25 or with the recent opening of the one in Manchester,
Trafford Park. Going past there the other day you could see cars
already beginning to queue on the motorway causing greater congestion.
The fear in the cities, as you rightly point out, is that may
lead to taking the shopping and the commercial activities away
from the centre. I think that is a challenge to us. What we have
tried to do is to make the cities more attractive, to bring in
the local transport plans to encourage people to come to shop
in the centres. Charging is a way by which we will seek to encourage
them to use public transport more and cars less. We have not extended
that charging principle to customer parking at out of town shopping
centres although we are being much more restrictive about the
planning requirements for out of town shopping. For the moment
a number of them do a number of transport policies that we are
prepared to encourage, a number of measures about exhaust testing.
We have produced our consultative document which has now gone
out making a number of proposals as to how we might deal with
that. In the London legislation we are now actively involved in
proceeding with the legislation. There will be uncertainties and
there will undoubtedly be difficulties but I have no doubt that
this radical change of moving to the hypothecation of charging
and improving the prospects of public transport will be to the
benefit of the cities and community generally.
676. Where you have a free standing city,
and many cities in the country are drawn tightly around their
own core in terms of their administrative boundaries, are you
effectively saying "we hope these things will happen"
and there will be no measures to ensure, for example, by passenger
transport areas perhaps having that function, the function of
charging, that that can be actually implemented as opposed to
keeping one's fingers crossed and hoping that people will co-operate?
(Mr Prescott) I will ask my colleague to comment
who is doing a lot of this detailed work. Let me just take the
point in your question. We have different authorities we are dealing:
the passenger transport authorities, the local authorities, there
is a whole regional concept of transport almost embodied in the
London one and it is horses for courses. You are asking me whether
I think these people will have some kind of road charging or workplace
parking charges, whatever they are. We asked them to look at that,
consider them in the plans, and they have to make an application
to us to have the right to charge. We will discuss their transport
plans, which will be five year plans, to see whether those monies
are going into improving public transport. At the moment we are
providing the framework. I have no reason to doubt that this will
be taken up by many authorities who have indicated that but I
want them to be plans that are meeting our objectives, that is
reducing the amount of vehicle movement in the city, being able
to improve the air quality in the city and at the same time providing
a very attractive alternative on public transport. I think it
is a successful formula. The alternative is to leave it as it
is, the massive environmental problems coming from congestion
every day with the growth under its present projections as it
is.
Christine Butler
677. The success of an integrated transport
policy will depend in large measure on integrated thinking of
policies within and across departments. There are one or two problems.
Are you satisfied that you are making enough progress with the
overarching policies needed for the success of integrated transport
in consideration of policies coming from the DTI and others as
regards planning and business competitiveness? In particular I
have in mind the much criticised McKinsey report on business competitiveness
and the setting up of industries on greenfield sites as well as
out of town retail complexes.
(Mr Prescott) Perhaps my colleague, John, will
mention something about the McKinsey report. In the integration
between the departments I am very satisfied that is beginning
to take place. On the environmental matter the green ministers
are making a co-ordination to pursue the environmental objectives,
to see that they are put into the local transport plans because,
frankly, much of this has to be met at the local and the regional
level and not Central Government. We can provide the powers and
the plans to achieve that, indeed we are doing that. We are working
to integrate our policies with the Health Department, with the
Home Office—you have already been talking to the Home Office
on how some of their rules apply to the way police powers might
apply in regard to control and management and traffic—in
Health and Education, of course. Through the School Travel Advisory
Group we know that one in five journeys now in the morning rush
hour are people taking their children to school. Clearly for us
to find a policy to that involves us in actually talking to the
Department for Education as well as ourselves. On health, of course,
on a healthy transport policy in the sense of the tool kit that
has been developed to improve air quality in the cities, that
is integration. We are well on the way to discussing that. Of
course, the impact assessments that Government will want to make
on these are now being set up on the environmental impact of policy.
It is crucial to do that because we have set targets for ourselves
from the Kyoto Agreements that give targets for transport, one
of the greater emitters of greenhouse gases and CO2 gas. We will
have to assess that because we have now accepted an international
target that will be imposed through our policy and it requires
integration which I am satisfied that we are now beginning to
make a start to do.
(Dr Reid) On integration, which you have mentioned,
of thinking between the departments, we have made major advances.
Obviously we have done it in Environment, Transport and the Regions,
not only in thinking but bringing it together under the Deputy
Prime Minister. We have very close contacts with other departments.
For instance, we are working with Health and Education on the
School Travel Advisory Group. As far as the DTI is concerned,
I am absolutely convinced that there is no conflict between the
general competitiveness thrust of the DTI, where of course the
White Paper concentrates mainly although not exclusively on high
tech industries. We are working with them on that. On the McKinsey
report specifically, I think that while it is a useful comparison
of economic growth conditions between the United States and ourselves
it is misleading because it does not take into account all the
costs of, say, environmental pollution and so on. The downside
of what you are suggesting would be to countenance environmental
pollution, congestion and so on, the very things that concern
this Committee. I do not think that either ourselves or the DTI
regard the McKinsey report as in any way definitive. The final
thing I would say which relates both to your question and the
previous question from Dr Whitehead is that we are not going to
dictate to people. That seemed to be the implication of the choice
that was being put before us. We have to give local authorities
a choice in this to move forward in an integrated transport policy.
Certainly we give them incentives. We have increased the money
to them by £700 million. We give them incentives because
we are going to give them congestion charging powers as well.
Certainly we co-ordinate the metropolitan areas and the areas
outside areas by the regional planning guidance that we are putting
out now. I think that in terms of the question you asked, there
are mechanisms in place to co-ordinate the metropolitan areas
and those outside on things like congestion charging. We are not
going to dictate from the centre because the minute two ministers
and six Whitehall bureaucrats sit down and start dictating what
happens to the roads in your city you would be quite naturally
and rightly the first to complain. We set the framework, we give
them incentives.
Chairman
678. Minister, some people might have thought
that the previous head of the DTI was giving a very clear steer
and that it was in the very opposite direction of that which you
have posited this morning. Are you suggesting that a change at
the top of the DTI means that you will get further co-operation
with environmental implications?
(Dr Reid) No, far be it for me to suggest that.
I think that the DTI, like ourselves, takes a balanced view of
these matters. What we are trying to do on transport under the
Deputy Prime Minister, bringing together environment on one side
and economic regeneration on the other, is to balance that. What
I am saying is the McKinsey report tends to look only at those
factors that would give economic development and downplays the
downside of environmental aspects and for that reason, while it
is useful, it is misleading for the purposes that this Committee
would want to see, that we want to see, and indeed I think by
the DTI even over the past year.
Christine Butler
679. I understand that. I am trying to draw
out of you the question of priorities and mechanisms. This is
the answer to dealing with this in my mind. If we are to see success
where are the priorities when you are attempting to integrate
overarching policies between departments? What mechanisms might
apply for success? Again, I agree with you on the issues of sustainability.
(Dr Reid) The key word which is accepted by all
departments now is "sustainable". By watching the minutes
we must not lose the hours. Obviously employment and production
increases in economic growth are essential but if the cost of
them is pollution and congestion on the downside, if that is the
cost of it, we obviously have to take that into account. We certainly
do and I believe the DTI do. We do not think the McKinsey report
took that into sufficient account.
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