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We are approaching the 60th anniversary of the 1949 Act that brought the parks into existence. It would be a very good time to see the Minister bring out a thought-through, sustainable transport policy for the parks. It would be a suitable counterpart to the recently announced bid to identify England’s first sustainable travel city. The Government take pride in the national parks. There is an issue here for the Minister; I hope he will address it.
3.30 pm
Baroness Valentine: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, on securing this timely debate. As many noble Lords may recall, I am chief executive of London First, a non-profit-making business organisation whose membership includes both transport providers and users.
When business leaders are asked what is the major driver of London’s future success, the quality and quantity of transport infrastructure is their enduring response. Business leaders in other UK cities mirror this response.
So why does transport matter? Recent research by the Centre for Cities, in keeping with the Eddington report, affirms that good transport, particularly in and between major cities, is a necessary condition for economic growth. And the UK simply does not have the world-class transport system that it deserves.
In the capital, we have seen decades of neglect: transport investment that is inadequate to maintain, let alone improve, our networks, outstripped by economic and population growth. While we have welcome commitments to Tube modernisation, Crossrail, Thameslink and a third runway at Heathrow, they are long overdue and, of course, yet to be delivered. We are in a perpetual state of catch-up.
London is the UK’s gateway to the world economy, a true world city. But its millions of commuters would not consider their daily experience to be world-class—and certainly not at the moment. Many of us who are on the Underground at rush hour, unable to elbow our way into the crush, would use much less parliamentary language to describe our journey. With another 1 million people and at least half a million extra jobs forecast by 2026, London’s constrained transport capacity will once more pose a threat to our national success and global competitiveness, as well as damaging Londoners’ quality of life.
On the other hand, there is clear evidence that investment which builds London’s economic capacity benefits the UK as a whole. Investment in transport infrastructure can cement long-term growth and
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I shall focus on quality and cost, but I should like to mention one issue in relation to crime. Initiatives from the Mayor, Transport for London and British Transport Police have seen a significant reduction in crime on public transport in the past year. This is very welcome but, critically, it is not accompanied by similar reductions in criminal behaviour in areas adjacent to the transport nodes. We must be certain that we are not merely displacing the problem. I look forward to British Transport Police working with its colleagues in the Metropolitan and City forces to tackle this issue.
I want to make three principal points. First, improving quality may be reliant on loosening capacity constraints. Secondly, some transport improvements depend less on money and more on customer-focused management and co-ordination. But, thirdly, good-quality public transport ultimately costs money. Whether it is the taxpayer or the passenger, someone has to foot the bill.
Quality and capacity are intimately linked. Quality improvements are limited where capacity is constrained. Let us consider congested streets, crowded Tube and stacking in the air. If London is to be the best city in the world to live in, we forget at our peril that people come here to do business. If we are to attract and keep the brightest of the world’s talent, the capital must do more than transport them in glorified cattle trucks. Reliability, comfort, convenience and speed are fundamentals.
A recent London First study of the quality of the passenger experience at Heathrow, our only hub airport, makes the point. It concluded that one of the reasons that travellers are so frustrated is that it operates at 99 per cent of its permitted capacity. It gives us frequent flights to many of the places we want to go, but by scheduling without any slack. This inevitably leads to delays. Whenever something goes wrong, there is no room to recover.
To continue the Heathrow illustration, a third runway will deliver the quality improvements needed only if measures are in place to prevent it from filling up again to bursting point. Regulations and customer-focused management must address delays, noise and air pollution. A mechanism will be required to allow slots to be withdrawn if standards are breached. When bigger comes, best must be the minimum acceptable outcome.
That leads me to my second point. We need to create the conditions for better operational management, be it of air capacity, on the Underground or on London’s roads. Overcoming poor quality is not just a matter of supplying more trains, more buses or more planes. It requires, particularly in the capital, a high and better level of co-ordination. It requires clever modern management of, and investment in, the less glamorous infrastructure of signalling and safety systems.
Spend just a little time looking at the impact of roadworks in London and you will quickly understand the difficulty of assigning responsibility, aligning incentives and ultimately mitigating the effects on quality. Choked streets impact on quality of life, air and noise pollution, as well as the car, taxi, bus and van passenger experience, not to mention efficiency. There needs to be more
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I turn to my third point. Noble Lords are too wise to be taken in by the fool’s gold of bigger, better and cheaper. Yes, we need investment in transport. There is a legitimate debate to be had as to whether public transport should be funded by the state or by the user, but we are in a deep recession with unprecedented peacetime deficits. We need to be realistic about how we weigh increases in fares against the burden of tax, as well as being conscious of the need to maintain socially important concessions.
Let us ensure that there are no scales over our eyes. We cannot have continental levels of public funding at American levels of taxation. Indeed, we may not be able to afford continental levels of investment at historically continental levels of taxation until we have tamed the deficit. Of course we must seek the right public and private structures to optimise efficiency. Crossrail, for instance, is being funded by a combination of taxation, business contributions and the fare box. But whatever the arrangement, good quality public transport costs.
I conclude by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Adonis on his recent elevation. It is refreshing to have a Secretary of State who is both passionate and knowledgeable about his brief. And all the better, for me at least, for his being in this House. Given the state of forward funding for investment, he must concentrate on maximising bangs for bucks. His aim should be to prioritise investment, which will unshackle growth and support increased economic activity. Transport investment passes that test. Transport investment in London gets an A*, underpinning growth in the most productive region of the UK, and thereby generating billions of tax for the Exchequer.
3.38 pm
Baroness Quin: My Lords, I, too, welcome the opportunity to contribute to a debate on public transport and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, on initiating it and on the informed way in which he spoke to it and introduced our proceedings. As other noble Lords have done, I also take the opportunity to congratulate the Minister on his promotion to Cabinet. We all used to think of him, rightly, as an expert in education, but it has been clear over the past few months how engrossed he has become in transport. I wish him well in pursuing the policy goals that he has identified.
I welcome many of the improvements that have been achieved in transport policy over the past decade and in transport investment. In particular, I welcome the growth in rail travel. I understand that there are more passengers now than at any time over the past 60 years and the accompanying investment has been welcome, as well as the plans for continued investment into the future. This has been a welcome change from the underinvestment which certainly took place before 1997. I am also glad that a boost has been given to rail freight, and I hope that that process will continue.
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In the limited amount of time available to me this afternoon, I shall concentrate my remarks on the transport situation and the transport needs in my own part of the country, the north-east of England. Obviously, there as elsewhere, good public transport is important, not only for the quality of life of the region’s population but also for the contribution that such transport makes to the region's future economic prosperity.
The first area that I refer to is that of concessionary travel. I had better declare an interest as a concessionary pass holder myself. I am delighted that concessionary bus travel was extended across England. Indeed, I played a part in the campaign, having introduced a Bill on it when I was a Member in the other place and having successfully lobbied the then Chancellor—now Prime Minister—to introduce it. However, there are some issues regarding concessionary travel that still need to be sorted out. A couple of weeks ago in this House, the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, referred to the situation in border areas—particularly in the border areas of England and Wales and those more relevant to the north-east between England and Scotland. The noble Lord said that it was an Offa's Dyke and a Hadrian's Wall issue. It is certainly not a Hadrian’s Wall issue, since most of the length of Hadrian’s Wall runs nowhere near the border between England and Scotland. Indeed, as the line of Hadrian’s Wall runs right through the middle of the great city of Newcastle upon Tyne, the thought of having different concessionary travel documents was extremely alarming. I am sure that the Minister will assure me that I do not need to worry on that score. However, I know that people in the north-east would benefit very greatly if there were better reciprocal arrangements across the border between England and Scotland.
There is another important issue about concessionary fares that I would like to raise with the Minister, regarding the Tyne and Wear metro train system. The system was originally designed as an integrated system, of the kind to cheer up my noble friend Lord Judd. Like him, I believe in integrated systems. It was designed so that buses and metro trains would operate in a complementary way to create a proper, unified system for the Tyne and Wear conurbation. Sadly, bus deregulation undermined this very greatly but, despite that, people in the conurbation still use a mixture of train and bus in their regular travelling. However, concessionary bus passes, unlike in London or Greater Manchester, cannot be used by local residents to travel free on the metro system. The system is that a card, costing £12 a year, has to be purchased first to allow residents to benefit from that concessionary travel. I would like Tyne and Wear residents to benefit in exactly the same way as those in the much larger Greater London and Greater Manchester areas. I should be grateful if the Minister could write to me about this to see whether there is a way in which to overcome this particular difficulty.
The regional development agency in the north-east, One North East, has identified in its recent documents a number of transport priorities to which I hope the Government will give sympathetic consideration. Indeed, the regional development agency makes the very interesting point that the north-east, whose economy
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Through the Northern Way initiative, various ways of improving the transport links between the north-east, Yorkshire and the north-west have been identified and put forward to Government. Obviously, I hope that the Government will respond, because that will result in a more balanced economic picture across the whole of the UK.
If links from the north-east to Yorkshire and the north-west are important, so are links northward to Scotland. As we know, there has been considerable transport investment in Scotland, particularly in roads. The north-east certainly does not want to be an area of poor road and rail infrastructure between Yorkshire to the south and Scotland to the north. In this respect, my noble friend will probably not be surprised if I refer once again to the importance of dualling the A1 road north of Newcastle, to benefit both public and private transport.
Dualling the A1 is important for the economy of the north-east region and the safety of the region’s people. At present, the Al north of Newcastle is an appalling mixture of single and dual carriageways. Some single-carriageway sections look very much like the dualled stretches which, perhaps as a result, might explain why a large proportion of the many accidents on that route have been head-on collisions, where motorists have thought they were on a dualled stretch only to find, in the most tragic of circumstances, that they were not. That issue has been of all-party concern in the north-east of England, and will continue to be so unless it is satisfactorily addressed.
I conclude by referring to future rail investment. Generally, I welcome very much the Government’s approach to that, but I would obviously like assurances that the north-east will not become less competitive for trade and investment, when compared with other regions, in decisions regarding future high-speed links between London and Scotland. I was very grateful for the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, on that.
The north-east’s economy has seen much progress during the lifetime of this Government, and I am sure that the region as a whole wants to play its full part in the sustainable transport strategy that the Government have identified. The region needs to be able to build on what has been achieved so that we can play our full part in the sustainable economic prosperity of our country for the long-term future.
3.47 pm
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, on securing this important debate.
I propose to concentrate on British aviation, and I do so as president of the British Airline Pilots Association, in which capacity I have been involved—with one or
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I have, of course, had contact with many Secretaries of State, but I put on record my appreciation of my right honourable friend Geoff Hoon and my honourable friend Jim Fitzpatrick, who together have done so much to advance the cause of British aviation. At the same time I want, as many others have done, to welcome my noble friend Lord Adonis, who will certainly bring to air transport his considerable intellectual talents.
There can be no doubt that British aviation is suffering in the economic downturn, and we would neglect it at our peril. Aviation is a form of public transport, just as much as buses or rail. It is no longer a mode of transport for the elite; half of our population took a flight last year, and more than 180 million people use our airports. Aviation is much safer than the car or rail; I pay tribute to them as well, but the UK has the lowest accident rate in Europe, and BALPA plays a full part in achieving that desirable objective.
Aviation pays its own way. It receives no public subsidy. It makes a massive contribution to our economy. It provides £11 billion to that economy and 500,000 jobs are directly or indirectly dependent on a healthy and viable aviation industry. So much for quality and cost, but there is also a downside. Recently, British Airways, which I have long admired, published some dire results. Part of that miserable saga was due to the policy—mistaken I believe—of concentrating too much on first and club class passengers. British Airways formed the false belief that such passengers could be its saviours. I believe that it was wrong. The statistics bear eloquent testimony to that fact. Regrettably, all that has little to do with the economic situation and everything to do with miscalculation, however well intentioned the authors may have been.
British Airways is not the only one in trouble. Most if not all our airlines face enormous difficulties, but the leaders must not, in this hour of crisis, lose their heads. There has to be more co-operation than there has been in the past. Trade unions need to do their utmost to understand the problems that airlines confront and airlines should recognise that the unions and people living under their flight paths have worthwhile views that airlines must not ignore.
The world over, aviation encounters stormy weather, and here in the United Kingdom the Government have to bolster it rather than make it less competitive than its neighbours. Hence, I have real worries about air passenger duty. Surely, it will have an adverse impact on a troubled industry. I hope that my noble friend will allude to that.
I now come to the environment. At present, the effect on global CO2 emissions is minimal at about 0.1 per cent. Of course, that will increase, but the next generation of aircraft will be even more environmentally friendly and we should do our best to ensure that the Government and all who care about the environment make certain that aviation is not insulated from the environmental advances that we need. International action is vital in that regard, but effective action takes time. For instance, we now take terminal 5 for granted, but the original planning permission was lodged when Mick Jagger was 40 years old!
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My final point is about airports. I am and have always have been a supporter of further development at Heathrow. The airport there exists. It can be improved and expanded, but it is essential that proper account is taken of certain elements. People living near the airports should be fully consulted and where necessary appropriate action taken.
Secondly, road and rail access to the airport must not be overlooked. I have seen for myself how already inadequate road access has become much worse over recent years. I fear it could become even more difficult in times ahead. I hope that those who are responsible will take appropriate action over that single factor. Imaginative action must be taken, but I see little sign of that at the moment.
I am an avid supporter of an expanded Heathrow and of British aviation. The alternatives which have been broached are simply not viable. Yet the airlines need to be fully responsive to the anxieties that British people seek to express.
To conclude, I wish my noble friend every possible success. I have long been an admirer of his and remain so.
3.56 pm
Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Bradshaw for tabling this debate and note that, in your Lordships’ House at least, the lure of public transport failed to match up to that of constitutional reform. Nevertheless, the die-hards are here. I am pleased to see one of the usual suspects, the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, on the Front Bench today. It is sad to see that there is a low level of participation in this debate given the role that public transport plays in reducing congestion, improving accessibility, dealing with climate change and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, said, promoting economic development and growth.
I was involved in local government transport in 1997 when the Labour Government came to power. We welcomed then their commitment to public transport. There have been some significant developments and yet it is interesting to note that the cost of public transport, against the cost of motoring, has gone up significantly since 1997. The overall cost of motoring has gone down by 13 per cent in real terms while rail fares have risen by 7 per cent and bus fares by 17 per cent. As the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, said, it would be naïve to imagine that somehow there is going to be a whole lot of money to throw at the railways, but we have to recognise that if the cost of public transport is to be so high then we have to ensure better quality. At the moment we are asking people to pay more for a service that is declining.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, said, people clearly want to use trains. The numbers are growing. Yet there are times when the service tests even the most dedicated railway fan and public transport user. It comes down to what my noble friend Lord Bradshaw exemplified well as a general lack of consideration for passenger convenience. The Public Accounts Committee in another place recently produced a report which highlighted this in terms of high car-parking charges, overcrowding on trains and complex fare structures.
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I am a regular rail user and travel up and down the country. I prefer to travel by train but it really tests you at times. The problems start at booking. There is an immensely complicated fare structure now which is extremely difficult to find your way around even for people who understand the system. That also assumes you have access to the internet and are good at using it. If not, it is almost impossible to take advantage of the cheaper, pre-booked fares. Quite often, when you talk to the station or call centre staff they do not know what the best available fares are. If you are travelling at the weekend, you are then almost certain to be faced with the horror of planned engineering works. We would all accept that engineering works have to take place and weekends are probably a good time to do them. However, it is a fact that, compared with many European countries, we do this sort of work much more slowly. Track possessions in this country go on for longer than in other places. There is a serious job of work to be done to benchmark how Network Rail carries out this work compared with how things are done elsewhere.
Certainly, from my dealings with the industry over a number of years, I suspect that a large part of that is due to over-zealous enforcement of health and safety regulations. The irony is that quite often the enforcement of theoretical health and safety regulations ends up causing delays that push people on to the roads which, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, are palpably statistically far more dangerous. We would rather have people on the railways. We need to ensure that health and safety regulations are there to support the safety of the railway and not to deal with some sort of theoretical risk.
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