Transport for London: Funding

David Amess Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 331453, relating to funding for Transport for London.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for taking part in the debate. There are quite a lot of Members on the call list, so I will speak as quickly as I can to fit everyone in. I hope hon. Members will forgive me for not taking any interventions, so everyone can get in.

On behalf of the Petitions Committee, I thank the over 170,000 people who have signed this petition, including 1,272 people from Carshalton and Wallington. I appreciate that there might be questions as to why we are having this discussion, given that the second Transport for London bail-out protected free transport for under-18s, but I think this is a live issue that will return, so it is right that we take the time to discuss it this afternoon.

I might be showing my age, but I can remember the introduction of the Oyster card scheme and free travel for under-18s. From the days of keeping loose change by the front door to get the bus to school, we changed to the Oyster card system when I was in high school. I have some personal experience of the impact that removing free transport for under-18s could have, having been on both sides of the introduction.

I pay tribute to the team at the Petitions Committee, which has conducted a survey among those who signed the petition to find out a bit more about their views. We have had over 3,000 responses to that survey. I would like to run through the key findings of the survey. Participants were asked how important zip cards, or other forms of concessionary travel, were for young people, and the impact that their removal might have. A zip card, or other form of concessionary travel, was reported to be “very important” to access school or college by 93% of respondents. It was also considered to be “very important” by 80% of people for accessing services, including medical appointments, 79% for work, 72% for training placements, 60% for accessing leisure and extra-curricular activities, 65% for socialising and 62% for meeting family and friends. If the 16-plus zip card scheme were suspended, 71% of respondents said they would find it “extremely difficult” to access school or college, 57% said it would make it “extremely difficult” to access work and 61% said it would make it “extremely difficult” to access services, including medical appointments.

The survey went on to ask the respondents what impact the removal would have on their travel habits. Almost five times as many young people said they would use taxis “very frequently”, with the number of people who would use private car “frequently” or “very frequently” more than doubling. The number of respondents who indicated they would cycle increased by 82%, but there was no significant change indicated by those who said they would walk. The survey also found that 60% said they would use the tube, DLR, London Overground or TfL Rail less, and 56% said they would use a bus or a tram less.

It is clear that petitioners feel that the change would have a great impact on their lives. Therefore, it is only right that we look at the heart of TfL’s financial situation. It would be easy to say that coronavirus and the subsequent drop in passenger numbers is responsible for TfL’s financial woes. Indeed, the onset of covid-19 has resulted in significant reductions in passenger demand, not just in London but across the country. For most of March and April, daily tube usage was around 5% of normal levels and daily bus usage was only 18% of normal levels. While we have seen a rise in passenger numbers over the past few months, they have remained stubbornly far below normal pre-pandemic levels, and the recent re-imposition of an England-wide lockdown has also had an effect on TfL’s finances.

However, I want to talk about the state that TfL’s finances were in before the pandemic hit. It is clear to me that Londoners were, and are, being let down by a Mayor whose mismanagement of the capital’s transport network has cost TfL billions of pounds in lost revenue, waste and bail-outs, as well as the pursuit of transport policies that he knew TfL could not afford. There are countless of examples of this, and I will run through a few.

At least £640 million in revenue was lost by freezing pay-as-you-go fares that essentially benefit tourists, but not Londoners, who saw the cost of their travel cards rise. Crossrail has been delayed by nearly four years, despite being on time and on budget when this Mayor took office. It was due to open in December 2018, but after multiple delays it is now not expected to open until mid-2022. The delay has cost TfL £3.9 billion in bailouts and £1.35 billion in lost fares revenue.

TfL’s debt has rocketed to a record £11.7 billion. Some 21 major transport projects have been delayed or cancelled. The bill for TfL staff on trade union duties has almost doubled. TfL’s nominee passes, which essentially let the housemate or lodger of anyone working for TfL ride for free on the tube network, cost an estimated £44 million in lost fares. The amount TfL spends on executive pay has ballooned. The number of staff on over £100,000 a year has risen by nearly 100 in the last four years.

TfL’s performance-related pay bonus has gone up by nearly a third, from £8.3 million in 2017 to £11.8 million in 2019. Fare dodging is estimated to cost £400 million. £12.3 million has been wasted on the Rotherhithe crossing and £20 million on Woolwich ferries, and the list goes on.

As pointed out by our excellent candidate for Croydon and Sutton on the London Assembly, Neil Garratt, that has had an effect on boroughs like mine, in Sutton. In a London Assembly report released last year, it was shown that Sutton was dead last for investment from City Hall out of all the London Boroughs, and that was pre-pandemic. That means that the future of transport projects, such as the Tramlink extension to Sutton, which our London Assembly member Steve O’Connell has been championing for a long time, is in jeopardy.

It is fair to say that we are going to be living with the effects of the pandemic for some time, and that includes transport in London. The Government expect TfL to prepare proposals for achieving financial sustainability by 11 January 2021, in advance of a long-term solution for TfL’s finances being announced before the second bailout expires in March 2021.

That long-term package must address the huge wastage that I have outlined and not punish Londoners for the cost of the pre-pandemic mismanagement of TfL’s finances. However, ultimately this comes down to the political choices of the Mayor, and in May next year the petitioners will have a choice to make: four more years of waste and higher costs with the current Mayor, or getting TfL’s finances under control and delivering a better deal for Londoners with Shaun Bailey.

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

Colleagues, some people have withdrawn from the call list; others are not here, but they may turn up. As a best guess, if everyone speaks for five or six minutes at the most, everyone will be called.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. At the outset, it is important to say that Transport for London is critical to the functioning of the city. It is vital for the economic and social wellbeing of London. These days, although it is unfashionable to say so, London is the economic motor of the UK economy. If TfL does not function, London does not function, and the knock-on effect on the country is inestimable, so it is right that the Government have stepped in.

It is worth pointing out that neither Transport for London nor the Government are responsible for the health crisis that we are in. It is true that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) and the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) pointed out, the pandemic has devastated Transport for London’s finances. That is a fact and is not open for debate. It is right that the Government have stepped in twice over a six-month period, to the tune of £3.3 billion, and that cost is borne by the UK taxpayer collectively.

There has been much comment that certain benefits enjoyed by Londoners before the pandemic are not covered by the bail-out agreements. It is important to note that at pre-pandemic levels, there was more than £1 billion within Transport for London’s transport provision. More than £700 million of that went into buses, and there were £330 million of other concessions. The Government’s position in both bail-out agreements is that it would be inequitable to taxpayers across the country to pay for subsidised travel that is not enjoyed elsewhere. Why should taxpayers in Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham pay for a benefit that Londoners enjoy but they do not?

London’s deputy Mayor for transport, speaking on behalf of the Mayor, has pushed back on that. She said that that amounts to levelling down, and that Londoners are more dependent on public transport. I think there is something in that argument, but the financial management at City Hall over the past four years leaves a lot to be desired.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith criticised my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington when he said that he had crudely politicised this issue. Has he ever met Sadiq Khan? I cannot imagine a politician in this country alive today who misses an opportunity to crudely politicise any issue at all.

There are other facts, which were laid out at some length by my hon. Friend. There is the fares freeze—or partial fares freeze, as it should be called, because it is not a complete fares freeze. I am sure that much will be made by Labour Members, when they come to speak, of the withdrawal of the revenue grant from Transport for London’s budget. They will not acknowledge that much of that is replaced by business rates, but they will harp on about the £700 million. They are right to draw attention to that withdrawal, because it has harmed Transport for London’s finances, but it did not happen in one year or overnight; it was phased in over a three-year period. The first year of it was under the previous Mayor, so candidate Khan, before he became Mayor Khan, knew about it. He knew that that money was going to disappear and he still, recklessly, pledged a fares freeze, a partial fares freeze, for the next four years in order to help garner votes to get himself elected. Transport for London’s costing of that at that time was £1.9 billion. Then, a few weeks later, it watered that down, because the commissioner was desperate to keep his job, to £640 million, and that is the figure that it is sticking at for the moment.

On top of that, we have, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington said, the massive delay to Crossrail. It is nearly £4 billion over budget and is four years late, and that will cost more than £1.6 billion in unachieved fares revenue. These things do not help, and they have happened.

Labour Members will say, and the Mayor has been saying ad nauseam, “Well, of course, this is a co-sponsored project between the Department for Transport and Transport for London.” That is true, but Transport for London is, and always was, the delivery arm for the project, because Crossrail Ltd, which the Mayor likes to blame, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London. And who chairs Transport for London? The Mayor of London. Crossrail’s delay can be laid squarely at the feet of Sadiq Khan.

We have heard about the 21 capital projects that have been delayed. We have heard about some of the fringe benefits—the TFL nominee pass scheme. We have heard—well, we had not heard about this—that trade union facility time at Transport for London has more than doubled under Sadiq Khan. There are now 81 people. The number of people who spend more than half of their time working solely on trade union facility activities has more than doubled. That is more than for the whole of the civil service put together.

We have seen other examples of Sadiq Khan’s wasteful approach to management. Staff costs at City Hall have gone up by 82% in four years. Does anybody believe that London is 82% better governed now than it was in 2016? Anyone at all? Of course not. The Mayor’s press office costs have increased by 33% since Sadiq Khan took office. There have been other really good headline-grabbing things, such as £800,000 spent on beach parties in 2018. And in 2019, £10 million was spent by the Metropolitan police to put every police officer over the rank of sergeant through a personality test to assign a colour to their personality. Apparently, that was critical. Ten million pounds was spent on that by this Mayor of London.

We are living in extraordinary times. The Government are dealing with an unprecedented health crisis. There is no manual for how to do this. The Government interventions, if they go to the full extent announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week, will amount to £280 billion, and they are very, very extensive.

In London, the Government have demonstrated their commitment to maintaining the core functions of Transport for London by injecting £3.3 billion of UK taxpayers’ money to keep Transport for London afloat. I do not think that anybody in this Chamber will argue with that, but in the circumstances, given the fact that the benefits in question are not enjoyed outside London and that City Hall under Sadiq Khan has been so wasteful with public money, it is hardly surprising that the Government should expect City Hall to fund the retention of such benefits.

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

I now have to impose a formal time limit of five minutes.