An integrated freight strategy
7. The Department published Sustainable Distribution:
a strategy in 1999 and described it as "a comprehensive,
integrated strategy for the sustainable distribution of goods
and services in the UK".[9]
The overall policy context in which the Department operates has
changed significantly since then: congestion on the roads and
railways has worsened, climate change has become a much more pressing
concern, Railtrack and the Strategic Rail Authority have been
replaced, there has been an Aviation White Paper, a Ports Policy
Review and a Rail White Paper. The Eddington Study (on transport's
role in sustaining the UK's productivity and competitiveness)
and the Stern Review (on the economics of climate change) have
had a fundamental effect on how we think about transport policy.
Our Report on The Ports Industry in England and Wales,
published in January 2007, recommended that the Government publish
an updated, integrated freight plan:
The Government has a fundamental responsibility to
the transport infrastructure of the UK: its major roads, railways
and rivers and canals. Its responsibility lies not only in the
renewal and, where required, the expansion of this infrastructure,
but also in ensuring that the freight that moves on it can do
so easily, quickly and sustainably. To this end, the Government
should develop an integrated freight plan as a matter of urgency.[10]
8. Our witnesses were generally supportive of
the call for a renewed freight strategy. Freightliner, for instance,
believed that it could facilitate sound investment decisions where
there were choices between major road and rail upgrades. Network
Rail suggested that the Government had arrived at an idea of its
priorities relating to freight transport—primarily to enable
the growth of rail freight in order to realise productivity and
environmental gains—but there was still a need to "set
out what that would mean over a period of quite a number of years".[11]
British Waterways and Sea and Water considered that a freight
strategy exploring ways in which the various freight modes can
interact, with measures to achieve increased freight on domestic
waterways, would give operators the certainty they needed to make
significant investments in infrastructure.[12]
9. Some representatives of the ports industry,
however, expressed concern at the prospect of Government "second
guessing the market", although the British Ports Association
(BPA) did recognise the importance of considering the freight
industry as a whole.[13]
It would like to see a freight policy rather than a freight plan,
which would enable "targeted investment with careful thought
given to transport projects which can have the maximum effect
on freight efficiency".[14]
The Association of International Couriers and Express Services
was sceptical of the value of adopting an integrated freight strategy
saying that it could result in "more bureaucracy and regulation
being imposed on top of existing arrangements with no measurable
improvement in the operation of freight transport".[15]
10. The Government did not accept the Committee's
recommendation for a freight plan in 2007[16]
and the incumbent Minister still does not believe that it would
be appropriate for the Department to produce a freight strategy,
although he is committed to addressing freight in wider strategic
work. He did concede that the Government should be able to "explain
much more clearly" how its strategy meets the needs of freight
users and how different freight modes interact. We were told that
the Department intends to publish a statement on freight transport,
pulling together its recent work and resulting conclusions, as
part of a wider transport green paper this summer.[17]
11. The transport of freight
has wide-ranging effects on individual businesses, the national
economy, the transport network, and the environment. We are not
persuaded that the Department for Transport's "hands-off"
approach is the right one. There are significant economic and
transport benefits that could be gained from a more active Government
freight strategy. The Government must not shirk this responsibility.
12. We have previously recommended
that the Department should produce a national freight plan, which
would be valuable in setting out the Government's vision for the
future of the freight transport sector. Important choices involving
trade-offs between interested parties need to be made by the Government;
its approach to such choices, as well as a description of the
kind of freight transport industry that the Government would like
to see in the future, should be brought together in a strategy
document which should reflect regional and national needs. We
recommend that the Government set out its aspirations for freight
transport, including its potential contribution to reductions
in congestion and transport emissions, likely requirements for
and location of freight infrastructure and jobs, and the kinds
of technology of which the freight sector might make use in the
future. This information would also increase the confidence of
those considering investing in freight infrastructure.
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