Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
RT HON.
RUTH KELLY
MP AND MR
ROBERT DEVEREUX
24 OCTOBER 2007
Chairman: Members having an interest?
Mr Clelland: I am a member of Unite.
Chairman: Gwyneth Dunwoody, ASLEF.
Mrs Ellman: I am a member of Unite.
Q1 Chairman: I think Mr Stringer
is a member of GMB and Amicus. Secretary of State, you are very
warmly welcome this afternoon. We value our session on the departmental
report, as you can imagine, because after all it covers so much
not just of the policy but also the emendations and the various
changes that have taken place in the department's work. Firstly,
can you identify yourself for the record and I will ask you then
whether you want to say something to begin with.
Ruth Kelly: Ruth Kelly, Secretary
of State for Transport. I am delighted to be appearing alongside
my Permanent Secretary, Mr Robert Devereux. I thought with your
permission I would just say a very few words at the beginning
of the session to set the scene.
Q2 Chairman: Please do.
Ruth Kelly: First, I am determined
as a new Secretary of State in the Department for Transport that
the Department for Transport continues to be an economics department.
As Sir Rod Eddington's report argued, a well functioning transport
system is vital to the continued success of the UK economy and
our quality of life. We have to ensure not only our continued
investment in the system but that all our policies in the department
underpin transport system that continues to support the UK's economic
prosperity. I am also very clear that another fundamental goal
of transport policy should be to ensure that the transport sector
plays its proper role in our fight to address climate change.
Professor Nick Stern argued that this does not have to be an either/or
choice, either an economics department or a green department.
It is possible to be both and I agree. A well designed strategy
can support economic growth and tackle carbon emissions. We need
to get the prices right to cover the environment and the congestion
costs of transport. We need to encourage technological innovation
and we need to promote behavioural change as well as being smart
about our investment decisions. If we can do all of those things,
then we can support I think people's desire for increased mobility
whilst at the same time reducing carbon emissions. Thirdly, I
am absolutely determined that we have a real focus on the user
in everything that we do, on the passenger, the people that really
matter. We have to understand the needs of passengers in relation
to rail, bus, aviation, international and domestic freight transporters.
Our policies right across the board should be to improve the experience
of every part of the passenger's journey and to do that we need
to understand the full end to end journeys from the moment the
user of the system leaves their home until they arrive at their
destination. As we go through the next few months and I hope beyond,
I hope to publish for example a transport framework which responds
to both Eddington and Stern, but also to publish some analysis
of the end to end journey time that was identified as a priority
for Eddington.
Q3 Chairman: That is extremely helpful,
Secretary of State. I am sure this Committee would say more power
to your elbow if you can succeed in getting all sectors of the
transport committee to respond to the needs of passengers on an
end basis. I think miracles will never cease. I want however to
start off by drawing your attention to the fact that, like all
good Civil Service documents, your review which has been very
elegantly produced has occasionally fallen prey to the habit of
using lots and lots of acronyms and initials. Because we are dealing
with the general public, I am sure you will forgive me if I ask
everybody to spell out the full titles they are dealing with.
Why have there been rather subtle changes between the objectives?
Under these new arrangements you seem to have one public service
agreement and four departmental strategic objectives. It also
says that you contribute to the public service agreement for other
departments. How are you going to priorities all these different
things?
Ruth Kelly: First of all, I share
your absolute hatred of acronyms. If I find any I am determined
to stamp them out, so we share a common starting point at least.
On the new PSA frameworks which have been determined across government,
the idea behind those was to move from a system in which we had
very, very many PSA targets—in transport we had seven—to
one in which we really focused on the cross cutting PSAs across
government. The department's objectives and strategic delivery
plans focus on what it ought to do to achieve those cross cutting
objectives. In the new world, where there are fewer targets and
we do focus on those, the Department for Transport has only one
PSA in which it is in the lead. Beneath that PSA there are four
indicators that also contribute to other PSAs. For instance, one
on climate change which is shared with Defra, one on child safety
for instance where it would naturally be put in the safety programme,
where we can continue to address those issues which we think are
of fundamental importance. It is right I think that we try and
narrow down the PSA framework and single out those areas where
real cross-departmental cooperation is important.
Q4 Chairman: What priorities are
you setting?
Ruth Kelly: The first priority
is the lead PSA for the department, that we should deliver effective,
reliable and efficient transport networks that support economic
growth. Under that we have our journey times onto main roads and
into areas which already exist in our current PSA framework, the
journey time reliability on the strategic network which also is
reflected in our current PSA framework, a new priority for a rail
network which I think is of real importance and was identified
by Sir Rod Eddington in his report, which is capacity and crowding
on the rail network while of course insisting on increases in
safety and performance in the recent HLOS framework. The new priorities,
capacity and crowding, are singled out and alongside that a renewed
focus on, as Sir Rod Eddington himself said, listening to the
numbers as well as to the people which means improving the way
we do our benefit cost ratio analysis and really focusing on those
areas of investment which we think will have the maximum impact
on people.
Q5 Chairman: Have you found out from
the supporting departments and local authorities how they are
actually going to use their budgets to assist your department
in achieving its new public service agreement?
Ruth Kelly: We do have a joint
target, for instance climate change, which we share with the Department
of the Environment. It is very clear that to meet not only our
Kyoto objectives or to make progress on our Kyoto objectives but
beyond that to meet the targets that have been negotiated in the
European arena transport will have to play into that and make
sure that the transport sector contributes to our overall goal
of reducing climate emissions by 60% by 2050. Defra clearly has
its part to play. I do not think it would be right to single out
particular parts of its budget which go towards that end. In a
way, everything that we do has to be done in such a way that it
is likely to contribute to that overall objective. It is a different
way of thinking about what our cross cutting objectives are rather
than singling out a bit of our budget which goes to support any
particular one.
Q6 Chairman: Have you been consulted
by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform,
DBERR, on your public service agreement 7?
Ruth Kelly: Public service agreement
7 is the climate change PSA.
Q7 Chairman: You have said for example
that you will publish a response to Eddington later on in the
year setting out new plans, but you have not made it very clear
what they are. You have also gone on to list your structure and
the changes within your own structure, the way that you divide
your work, but I think it would be helpful to have had a few more
details about how you expect those new nine areas to work and
exactly what you would expect the business plan objectives and
budgets to produce that is not produced now.
Ruth Kelly: There are two things
here. There is one about how we change our whole department in
response to the priorities set by Eddington and how we begin to
think about the problems that need to be solved rather than jumping
to the solutions to problems which may or may not exist.
Q8 Chairman: I may have missed something.
Is that what the department has been doing, jumping to solutions?
Ruth Kelly: What we have historically
been doing, as I am very sure you know, is looking at the road
programme and identifying our highest priorities within the road
programme, looking at our rail budget and thinking about what
the highest priority rail initiatives are in any given area and
again looking at our other budgets, local transport budgets for
example, and trying to prioritise the highest priority areas.
Q9 Chairman: You are not going to
do that; you are going to do something much more broad brush?
Ruth Kelly: What we are hoping
to do in the future—we are shortly going to publish a consultation
document about this—is for instance using the Eddington
framework we have three major priorities in this country. One
is to improve our inter-urban networks between cities. The other
is to improve our international gateways. The other is to improve
mobility within our cities, to try and think about what the real
problems within those three broad areas are and, before deciding
whether the answer is rail or a new road or a road widening scheme,
or the answer is somehow an aviation solution or a tram or whatever
transport solution it may be, think across modes about what the
best solution to that particular problem is. This is actually
a radical departure and it will take many years to implement comprehensively,
but we are shortly going to issue a consultation document which
will give everybody the opportunity, both to identify the problems
they think transport can help solve, and also a new way of appraising
individual projects, looking across all the modes.
Q10 Chairman: Have you consulted
with your colleagues in what I still persist in calling local
government about your public service agreement 20 which is increasing
the housing supply?
Ruth Kelly: Yes. We work very
closely together. I can say from my experience as Secretary of
State at Communities and Local Government that while I was there
I was aware of the very close working relationship between the
Department for Transport and CLG in relation to housing. This
has been happening quite intensively for the last year or so in
quit ea new and joint way. Where for example there is priority
for new houses to be built at a very early stage of that process
Department for Transport officials and CLG officials get together
and think about what the best way of delivering those houses is
to minimise the impact on the transport infrastructure.
Q11 Chairman: You have worked out
exactly how much of your budget you are going to commit to this
new way of working?
Ruth Kelly: That is not how we
approach the subject.
Q12 Chairman: If you are working
so closely with the departments, they would have given you an
indication of how much money they expect you to spend and how
much money they expect to spend.
Ruth Kelly: To give you an example,
when the first growth points were identified, £4 billion
of transport infrastructure supported the new housing in those
particular growth points. In future we are going to have to be
even more sophisticated about how we plan for housing developments.
To give you an example, if you build a new housing development
in the middle of a green field a long way away from the nearest
employment zone, it clearly will make great demands on the transport
infrastructure and it may require a new road or rail link to be
built. If for example you increase the density of housing around
a pre-existing railway station or railway town, clearly the requirement
on the transport infrastructure will—
Q13 Chairman: I understand. I think
your aims are excellent. I think you have set them out very well
indeed. I ask you again: you are having these detailed talks with
two ministries. We have identified two particular public service
agreements. What percentage of your budget and what percentage
of their budgets are you expecting to have committed to these
new projects?
Ruth Kelly: In a way it is using
our entire budget to support those agendas.
Q14 Chairman: All the strategic objectives
will be ----?
Mr Devereux: We are talking about
things that are going to be spent in different time frames. The
budget the department now has runs out to 2018. In respect to
what are we spending our budget on this year or next year, the
decisions that we and our predecessors have made have already
got to this investment in, let us say, preparing for Thameslink
or this investment in a road. It is very, very clear what that
is going to be spent on. Some of the conversation that you are
having at the moment is about what choices we face five and ten
years out into which we are at the moment putting in place arrangements
for thinking about what the best solution would be.
Q15 Chairman: As you and I know,
in the best departments even thought costs money. We will for
example want to hear from your side about the sustained changes
that you have brought about, the economies, the shared services.
There are a lot of things we shall be coming to you for. What
I still feel is, while you have two major public service agreements,
two very specific things: you are telling us you are looking at
it completely differently from the way you have looked at it in
the past. We are saying, "What a good idea." All I want
to know is are you doing this in an abstract way or in a concrete
way? I am sorry to be boring.
Ruth Kelly: What we are doing
is thinking now about how we can best support housing growth over
the next 10 or indeed 20 years and making sure that we plan transport
infrastructure which best supports that growth.
Q16 Mr Hollobone: Would the Secretary
of State like to visit Kettering at any point? The local population
is due to increase by at least 30% in the next 15 to 25 years.
The issues which you have just been discussing about adequate
transport provision are no more relevant anywhere else than in
Kettering. You would be very welcome to come and see for yourself
the very real problems that local authorities are experiencing
in trying to get budgets lined up to facilitate extra road provision.
I wonder if I could approach this from the other direction. This
is all very strategic. If my constituents were here reading the
report, trying to dissect all the jargon, what they would say
is that for them their transport experiences are very individual
experiences. They would like to know I think the experiences that
you and your senior official have with regard to the transport
network. Do you for example, Secretary of State, use public transport
on a regular basis?
Ruth Kelly: I am sure you will
be delighted to know that I used the tube at the weekend. I regularly
use the public transport system. I know that Mr Devereux is a
keen cyclist and cycles to work every morning or most mornings.
Q17 Chairman: Oh dear.
Mr Devereux: It is good for me,
I think.
Ruth Kelly: Yes, I do use the
public transport system and I came down on the west coast main
line last week.
Q18 Mr Hollobone: When was your last
experience in having to travel a long way standing up on a train?
Ruth Kelly: I use the railway
service frequently and you will understand I am absolutely sure
that sometimes that involves standing and sometimes it involves
sitting down.
Q19 Mr Hollobone: When was the last
time that you travelled by bus?
Ruth Kelly: Within the last few
weeks.
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