1 Introduction
1. Each year, Government Departments produce an Annual
Report on their activities. It is part of a series of documents
regularly presented to Parliament. Annually, the Department for
Transport requests expenditure through the Supply Estimates, and
Supplementary Estimates, and reports financial performance in
its resource accounts. In addition, it now produces an Autumn
Performance Report, presenting an interim report of progress against
its targets. [1]
2. We make a practice of taking evidence from the
Secretary of State and the Permanent Secretary on the Department
for Transport Annual Report, and its associated documents. Since
December 2003, the Department has also produced three significant
white papers; The Future of Air Transport, The Future
of Rail, and The Future of Transport.[2]
The Secretary of State told us that these three White Papers were
"designed to set out the framework for transport in this
country over the next 30 years."[3]
We took the opportunity offered by the evidence session on the
Departmental Annual Report to discuss this framework with the
Secretary of State, and include some observations on The Future
of Transport in this Report. We very much value the wide ranging
discussion we have in the evidence session on the Annual Report
and we are grateful to our witnesses. We would also like to express
our thanks to our specialist adviser, Dr Greg Marsden.
1 Department for Transport Autumn Performance Report
2004, Cm 6403 Back
2
The Future Of Transport: a network for 2030, Cm 6234, July 2004.
The Committee under took enquiries into Aviation(Sixth
Report of Session 2002-03, HC 454-I) and The Future of the
Railway (Seventh Report of Session 2003-04, HC145-I) before
each of the relevant White Papers appeared. Back
3
Q 3 Back
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