Examination of Witnesses (Questions 575
- 579)
WEDNESDAY 7 JUNE 2006
MR TONY
BOSWORTH, MR
SIMON BULLOCK,
MR RICHARD
DYER AND
MR PETER
LIPMAN
Q575 Chairman: Good afternoon and
a warm welcome to the committee. We are very glad to see you here.
We have quite a lot we would like to talk to you about and you
probably have plenty to say to us. However, we will be voting
at 4 o'clock and I think realistically we ought to try to get
through by 4 if we can because colleagues will disappear to vote
and it is not easy to get them back quickly. By way of a general
question to start off with, could I ask what your overall assessment
is of the effectiveness of the Government's approach to cutting
carbon emissions from transport, and whether they are ambitious
enough in their aims?
Mr Bosworth: Can I start with
a few comments specifically on the Department for Transport? The
Prime Minister has said that transport is critical to our long-term
goal of reducing carbon emissions, but from our perspective, the
Department for Transport does not have either a coherent strategy
for cutting emissions or a strategy which is really up to the
scale of the challenge of reducing transport's contribution to
climate change. I think we can see this from the transport section
of the new Climate Change Programme. This was a key opportunity
for the department to show that it had a coherent strategy, to
show that it was equal to the scale of the challenge, but there
were no new initiatives in this programme. There was maybe undue
optimism about what the measures already in place would actually
achieve, such as whether the voluntary target for greener cars
would be met. I think what we have there is a sign that the Department
for Transport's strategy is not really up to scratch in terms
of reducing carbon emissions. I think we can also see this relative
failure in the department's policy on road pricing. This is very
clearly a key policy area for the department. It was a key policy
area of the previous Secretary of State for Transport. The Prime
Minister has emphasised to the new Secretary of State that this
is going to be a key priority for him. He has taken it on as a
personal priority, but the focus on road pricing within the Department
for Transport has always been very much on cutting congestion
rather than on cutting emissions. I think that is shown up very
well by a comment which Dr Stephen Ladyman, the Transport Minister,
is reported as having made a couple of weeks ago at a conference
about the Transport Innovation Fund. He said: "It is difficult
enough to come up with a system to deal with congestion without
including the environment. First and foremost, we must deal with
congestion. Once we have got something more robust, we could come
up with a way to deal with emissions." I think that is showing
that we have a key plank of Department for Transport policy which
is a real opportunity to help us cut traffic and cut emissions,
but the Department for Transport is not looking at it in that
way; it is seeing it as a way of cutting congestion. Finally,
briefly, the final way in which we can see that the Department
for Transport's approach is not adequate to challenge of reducing
emissions is its policy on aviation. Its policy on aviation expansion
is completely out of step with climate policy, as your committee
has already seen and shown very well. I think what we have overall
is a department which does not have a coherent strategy and which
is not up to the scale of the challenge. Simon Bullock is going
to add a few words about how transport is tackled across the rest
of government.
Mr Bullock: The other critical
department for tacking transport emissions is clearly the Treasury
through their tax and spending measures. Again, although the Treasury
does have some good measures on company car taxation and latterly
on vehicle excise duty, overall their approach is a piecemeal
one; they do not have an overall strategy for using all the instruments
at their disposal to drive down emissions, not just in transport
but in all sectors. So you see policies on road spending through
the Comprehensive Spending Review and on road pricing and the
price of petrol which do not overall contribute to a strategy
that drives down emissions. It is very important that the Government
as a whole sets an overall carbon budget for the UK economy. That
is something we have argued for some time through our Big Ask
campaign, that we have a carbon budget for the whole economy and
sectoral targets are set for transport, domestic and industry,
all the sectors, and then use the range of policy instruments
is used across government to drive emissions down, and we do not
see that. There is no co-ordinated coherent approach across government
yet. That is a clear role for Treasury to lead on as well as the
Department for Transport obviously having lots of things to do.
Q576 Chairman: You have both touched
on a number of issues we will want to explore in a bit more detail
presently. Your own submission is among quite a number which have
suggested that there should be a specific target for the Department
for Transport to cut carbon emissions. If there was such a target,
what do you think it should be if you look out 15 to 25 years,
perhaps to 2050? What would you consider to be a sensible target
to set?
Mr Bosworth: It is important to
make clear first that what we probably need is a sectoral target
for transport rather than a specific target for the department.
Because of the influence of the Treasury and the Department for
Communities and Local Government, we need a sectoral target for
transport. As for what the target should be, that is a very difficult
question. I know you have already been speaking to the researchers.
The Halcrow Bartlett research gives us an idea of the scale of
the possible ambition, a 60% cut in transport emissions by 2030.
Friends of the Earth has some research due to be published soon
from the Tyndall Centre, which will be looking at targets across
the range of government departments and the range of sectors.
I think there will be some interesting conclusions from that.
Mr Bullock: A critical part of
this sectoral target is that it must include aviation. A key problem
with climate policy is that basically through accountancy tricks
international aviation does not count. Clearly these are real
emissions with real impacts and they must be included within that
target plan.
Mr Lipman: This should be set
in the context of Sweden's declared ambition to be oil-free by
2020. Sweden does have quite significant natural advantages over
the UK in some respects, but there seems to be now developing
a lead for how we tackle oil dependence, energy security and climate
change at the same time. There has been no equivalent vision whatsoever,
I am afraid, in this country.
Q577 Chairman: We have just been
to Sweden. I think it is fair to say that our very strong impression
is that their aim is to be free of dependence on oil, which is
not defined very precisely. It may not be quite as clear-cut as
some people try to interpret it.
Mr Lipman: I would accept that
when you look into it, some of the detail is disappointing. Just
as in their road safety they set a clear vision of zero fatalities
eventually from road accidents, they are at least trying to set
a benchmark.
Q578 Chairman: Do you think there
is more that could be done to co-ordinate government policy between
(a) different departments and (b) central and local government
in terms of reducing carbon emissions for transport?
Mr Lipman: Yes. I think the problem
at central level, department-to-department, is that on the one
hand you have a policy of hospital choice, of specialist new schools,
lots of new houses being built, and really no cutting across to
what the transport implications of this will be and the carbon
implications. What is termed sustainable development does not
seem very sustainable to us. At a local level, there has been
a complete failure to give strong guidance to local highways authorities.
The new LTP2 (Local Transport Plan 2) guidance gives a very clear
message that actually carbon mitigation is not important; it is
a quality of life issue and it is not a key deliverable.
Q579 Joan Walley: Would you include
the role of the original development agencies in the comment that
you have just made about the lack of agenda approach?
Mr Lipman: That varies from RDA
to RDA. Some of them seem to be putting much more attention on
to this. In the South-West, the Local Regional Development Agency
has been behind Regen South West, which is really putting some
effort into it.
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