Select Committee on Transport Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 305 - 319)

MONDAY 14 MARCH 2005

SIR HOWARD BERNSTEIN, COUNCILLOR ROGER JONES, MR CHRISTOPHER J MULLIGAN, LORD SMITH OF LEIGH AND COUNCILLOR RICHARD LEESE CBE

  Q305  Chairman: Good afternoon to you gentlemen. You are most warmly welcome here this afternoon. Would you be kind enough to identify yourselves, starting on my left.

  Lord Smith of Leigh: Good afternoon. I am Peter Smith. I am Leader of Wigan, but I am here in my role as Chairman of the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities.

  Councillor Leese: My name is Richard Leese. I am the Leader of Manchester City Council, but I am here in my role as Deputy Chairman of the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities.

  Sir Howard Bernstein: My name is Howard Bernstein. I am the Chief Executive of Manchester and, also, Clerk to the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority.

  Mr Jones: My name is Roger Jones. I am Chairman of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority.

  Mr Mulligan: My name is Chris Mulligan. I am Director General of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive.

  Chairman: Gentlemen, we have a little bit of housework before we commence our Committee. Members having an interest to declare?

  Ian Lucas: I am a member of Amicus.

  Miss McIntosh: I am doing a placement with the Industry and Parliament Trust for Network Rail and I have shares in FirstGroup.

  Chairman: I am a member of ASLEF.

  Mrs Ellman: I am a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union.

  Mr Stringer: I am a member of Amicus and an ex-member of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority and Manchester City Council.

  Q306  Chairman: Gentlemen, do you have something you wish to say to open the batting or may we go straight to the questions? I should point out to you that the acoustics in this room are difficult, so you will have to speak up because your words are being recorded but not projected.

  Lord Smith of Leigh: Chairman, if it is possible I would like to make an opening statement on behalf of my colleagues. First of all, we are delighted to be here and we thank you for giving us the opportunity to supplement the written submission we have made already. We welcome the Committee's timely review into light rail. We think it is a very significant issue for us in Greater Manchester and there is the support of all the 10 local authorities who are willing to pay 25% of the costs of the Metrolink Scheme. Greater Manchester has enjoyed comparative economic success over the past few years and Metrolink is a key factor in that success. However, there are parts of Greater Manchester that have not benefited from the success and we believe Metrolink would provide the connectivity to regenerate these areas. We thought, when we met the Minister for Transport in February 2004, we had reached certain shared conclusions: namely Metrolink was crucial to the economic fortunes of the region; the cost increases were significant. In the main, these were attributable to the significant changes in the perception of the private sector to risk as well as delays in taking decisions. The £520 million cap agreed in December 2002 was not sustainable with the progression of the Metrolink expansion of at least two lines, and it was undesirable to change procurement policy. The Minister indicated to us that he would consult with the Secretary of State and come back to us. Several months later, about 20 minutes before the announcement on 20 July, we learned that Metrolink was to be cancelled or, in DfT speak, "not to be proceeded with." We have worked hard to reposition Metrolink in the Government's list of key priorities and we now have the full support of senior Ministers that Metrolink must happen. Chairman, we see your inquiry as a major opportunity to set the record straight, to highlight the importance of light rail as a contribution to economic change as part of an integrated transport strategy and the importance of making early decisions to ensure new jobs and investment are not slowed down or completely lost.

  Q307  Chairman: Mr Smith, that is helpful. I hope we will be able to examine some of those aspects in the questions we want to ask you. Can I begin by saying we would like to know why you thought light rail met your transport needs?

  Mr Jones: In terms of light rail, all of us have been impressed with the success of the system since it came in about 12 years ago. What is more important to us is not what we think, it is what the public think and the public are massively in support of light rail because it has done everything we expected it to do. It has not just provided an efficient transport system for the public, but, also, it has got people, for the first time, I think, out of their cars and actually onto public transport. That has been absolutely phenomenal in Greater Manchester. So, when we had this hiccup from the Minister in recent months, the public have backed our campaign to the hilt because they know how successful it is and how successful it will be once it is expanded. We are more than happy with the current system as it is, but obviously we need to expand it right across the conurbation, which is what we would like to do.

  Q308  Chairman: What was the most important reason, the regeneration benefit or how much the transport needs of the corridors concerned took precedent?

  Councillor Leese: I think it is combination of both of those with an equal balance. The work which is being done on the proposed corridors for the Metrolink expansion shows that in terms of the number of people that can be carried in comparison with other public transport or other alternatives is significantly greater, perhaps as much as 35% greater. Journey times are significantly smaller and, in particular, modal transfer—people getting out of their cars onto public transport—is very much greater. I think the transport argument is a very strong one. At the same time, the economic analysis indicates that—I will give one example—the growth in GVA for the conurbation would be around £1.4 billion per year by the time the whole of the network is built out. Again, that is double the impact of any other possible alternative. At a more immediate sort of level, Peter Smith referred to parts of the conurbation missing out, which includes parts like Oldham and Rochdale where the economic performance is not as good as the rest of the conurbation. Things like their Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder are absolutely postulated on light rail being delivered to those particular areas. It is a real impact in terms of not just regeneration but, also, neighbourhood renewal.

  Q309  Chairman: Did you do any work on buses before the Department asked you?

  Mr Mulligan: We have always looked at the alternatives available to us. Working in the transport field, one sees there are various roles for various forms of transport: heavy rail is very good at medium and long term trips; intermediate trips, which Metrolink tends to cater for, are five to seven miles; buses, the average distance travelled is about two and a half miles. Nobody underestimates the importance of bus to passenger transport in Greater Manchester, about 85% of trips are taken by bus. What Metrolink does is give a speedy, reliable, quick access to the city centre for the large numbers of people it needs to carry.

  Q310  Chairman: Did you make it clear that you had looked at the bus alternative in your region?

  Mr Mulligan: We were required to do so, Chairman, because of the social cost benefit analysis on a number of occasions.

  Q311  Chairman: What was the effect when the Department asked you to investigate bus options in terms of time lost and expense?

  Mr Mulligan: We were quite willing to do that because one would not come forward with a proposal, such as light rail, with all the benefits which Councillor Leese and Lord Smith of Leigh have described, without having examined the benefits and costs of the alternatives and, indeed, if it is a requirement of the evaluation of the scheme. In all cases since 2000, we have been able to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Department's economists and civil servants that the scheme is much better value for money in their own terms than bus.

  Q312  Chairman: What about FirstGroup's new bus? They say it has got the advantages of the tram, it can be used with bus priority measures and it ought to be more efficient. Would the availability of such a vehicle change your view?

  Mr Mulligan: I do not wish to deprecate FirstGroup's bus, it has yet to prove itself in use. Also, I think it suffers from the handicap of all street-borne trouble of traffic lights, congestion and so on, whereas a segregated tramway is rather better.

  Q313  Mrs Ellman: If deregulation was dropped, do you think then buses would run as effectively as Metrolink?

  Mr Jones: We have campaigned on this regulation issue for a number of years now. We are absolutely clear that all the major cities outside London are at a massive disadvantage when it comes to the way buses operate. In Greater Manchester, at the last count I had there were 44 bus operators operating within the county. You have got two that dominate the market that never compete against one another and we have no regulatory powers whatsoever, as you know, to sort out the frequencies of the buses, the fares, the timetables and so on, so we are really in a mess when it comes to trying to make some sense of the bus. The public cannot understand what is happening, they cannot understand how a passenger transport authority does not have some kind of power, which they have in London and the fact that we have been left with this situation. What do we intend to do about it? Hopefully we then moved on to the quality contract argument, which I am sure you have heard before, but it just does not happen. The operators have said, more than once, they will boycott such a system if a system comes in. We do not feel the current Government are answering our point on regulation, which is crucial.

  Q314  Chairman: Mr Jones, I have to say, frankly companies manage to accept it quite well when they find themselves operating under it, like they do in the London system.

  Councillor Leese: I think an analysis would show that whilst re-regulation would mean the operation of a properly integrated public transport system would be a lot easier to do—indeed, I think we could only do it if there was regulation—I do not think regulation on its own would change in any way the comparisons in performance terms between buses as against light rail in those particular transport corridors. Whatever you do, there is only a limited capacity on the roads in those corridors and buses can only carry so many people. Even with regulation, you would still have a massive shortfall in the performance of buses against light rail.

  Q315  Mrs Ellman: The Department say they will only fund light rail if there is a properly integrated transport service with it. Are you saying you are not able to produce that under the current system? How close to it can you get?

  Councillor Leese: First of all, our LTP one, that was accepted as a Centre of Excellence for Integrated Transport, so we would say the Metrolink proposals were already built within—to the extent which we can—a proper integrated transport strategy. Some of the things you need to do, like integrated ticketing, integrated timetabling and a measure of price stability in terms of fares, can only be done if you have a fully regulated system. Integration can go a fair way along the track—if I can use that phrase—but only a certain way along the track without that regulation.

  Q316  Mrs Ellman: Would you say the Government has gone cool on light rail systems?

  Mr Jones: I am absolutely convinced of that. Although Ministers said that is not the situation, it seems to us that decisions were taken in the Department for Transport, maybe because of lack of resources, but they seemed to have made a decision that light rail has got to be put on the backburner. Certainly that is my impression in all the meetings we have had over the last 12 months or so. Although that is denied by Ministers, I am convinced that is the situation.

  Lord Smith of Leigh: My short answer would be, yes. I think the real question is why, why do we think it is happening like that? Is it the question that they do not believe light rail can deliver the transport solution—we think Metrolink proved that it can, it is part of a system—or is it because there are problems over affordability which I think are a different set of issues.

  Q317  Chairman: What conclusion did you reach? You have posed the question, which of those two do you think is the answer?

  Lord Smith of Leigh: I think I would tend towards the second of those.

  Q318  Mrs Ellman: Would you say the current appraisal system gives a proper evaluation of your scheme?

  Councillor Leese: No.

  Q319  Mrs Ellman: How should it be changed?

  Councillor Leese: For a proper evaluation of any scheme, as well as looking at the benefit cost analysis which is currently carried out which is done almost purely in transport terms, it does have to go beyond that and look at the competitiveness agenda, the social inclusion agenda and the regeneration agenda. There are some signs that evaluation is moving in that direction, but that has not been applied in any proper way to our proposals in the past. It grossly undervalues the contribution Metrolink would make to the Greater Manchester conurbation.


 
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