Department for Transport

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) on securing this debate on the spending of the Department for Transport, and I welcome this new format for estimates day debates. I will make a few points, and pose a couple of questions about the supplementary estimate, which I hope the Minister will address in his speech.

When we look at the Department’s spending and the announcements it makes, it would be easy to think that transport is about large infrastructure projects. Infrastructure is an important enabler, of course, but we must not lose sight of the outcome we want: it is about how people travel from place to place, how they get to work, and how they get to places to learn and study, and for leisure and for family and social life. Access to good transport opportunities enhances our quality of life, and its absence can lead to social exclusion and isolation.

Just two weeks ago, BBC analysis showed that the bus network is shrinking to levels last seen in the 1980s. Rising car use and cuts to public funding are being blamed for a loss of 134 million miles of coverage over the past decade alone, leaving communities with isolated residents unable to access the most basic services, such as getting to a health appointment or making a shopping trip. The Bus Services Act 2017 might help in some places, so what work have Ministers done to understand the effect of that shrinking bus network, and what impact is this having on other Departments, such as the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions, in terms of people’s ability to get to jobs, training or education opportunities? What are the Government doing to address those problems?

The second major concern to our constituents is the diabolical state of local roads. I will come on to issues around the strategic road network, but almost every journey starts and ends on local roads. This issue is raised time and again on the doorstep, and not just when I am talking to local residents in Nottingham, as there is a huge backlog across the whole country. The Department provides money to local authorities for local roads, including a pothole fund. It would be helpful if the Minister said something about the steps that the Department takes to ensure the value for money of the investment that it makes in local roads, because the current patch-and-make-good approach does not seem to be sustainable. My hon. Friends on the Front Bench have rightly called on the Government to fix it first. Yes, that would be a start, but I would say, fix it properly.

Scrutiny of the Department is vital. The National Audit Office has done some excellent work in providing an overview of the Department’s work and identified several key areas for improvement. The NAO’s work on the first road investment strategy found that that the Department developed it before having a complete understanding of whether the 112 road enhancement schemes in the portfolio represented best overall value. As we come on to the second road investment programme, Highways England and the Department need to show that they are doing more to understand the value of the investments they are making and the steps needed to secure the wider economic benefits.

That is probably even more true of the rail investment programme. The work to modernise the great western railway has shown that the Department did not have a secure understanding of the costs of and schedule for electrification. That led to a reprogramming of the investment plans for control period 5. Electrification between Maidenhead and Cardiff is now expected to cost £2.8 billion—a 70% increase against the estimated cost of the programme in 2014. We know what a terrible impact that has had on the rest of the work in CP 5 that has either had to be cancelled or rolled over into CP 6. The Department has many questions to answer on that. What has been learned will have been lost through the cancellation of that work and will potentially have to be relearned all over again.

Many questions arise from these supplementary estimates that need to be answered. I look forward, on the Transport Committee, to asking Ministers those questions and receiving answers.

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[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) for securing this debate through the Backbench Business Committee and providing Members with an opportunity to hold the Government to account on their spending. I am particularly pleased that we are debating the supplementary estimates for the Department for Transport, because I have frequently raised the issue of regional transport disparities in the House, and at the heart of this is the question of funding.

Put simply, the way the Department currently allocates and spends money is deeply unfair. It is unfair because its decisions on where to invest are based on a narrow and ultimately unsatisfactory value-for-money assessment. If the Government target transport spending in areas of high economic development or places where people already use public transport extensively, they are reinforcing inequalities rather than correcting them. Transport spending needs to be used as a tool for unlocking economic potential, and of course investment in public transport is one of the key ways of encouraging people to use it.

Bradford, like towns and cities across the north, is held back by a persistent lack of investment in our transport infrastructure. In recent months we have seen the cancellation of many rail electrification projects, the postponement of essential motorway upgrades in Yorkshire, and combined authorities forced to reduce bus services owing to continuing budget cuts.

The north as a whole, and Yorkshire in particular, is getting a raw deal. Recent analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research North has found that the true extent of regional spending disparity is considerably higher than the Government’s estimates. Under this analysis, future transport investment in London is 2.6 times higher per person than in the north. London is set to receive over £4,000 per person, compared with just £1,600 per person across the north as a whole. The situation is set to be even worse in Yorkshire, the lowest of all regions according to IPPR North, where the figure is just £844 per person.

The Government’s future spending plans therefore fail to address the historical under-investment in northern transport and infrastructure. Addressing the historical underfunding in Yorkshire will require step-by-step increases in per-person levels of funding until they are equal to those in London. The ambition to create a northern powerhouse and rebalance our national economy will remain unmet for as long as the current funding disparities in transport remain in place.

Let me be clear that I have little to no problem with the Government investing in London’s transport system; I believe that all regions benefit from a modern and extensive public transport system. What I do have a problem with are the gross inequities between different parts of the country. These inequities have real consequences for my constituents. Bradford, a city of over half a million people, with a young and enterprising population and home to some of the country’s best known companies, does not have a through railway station and is not directly on an inter-city network. This means that train journeys between Bradford and Leeds take over 20 minutes and average only 33 mph. Is it any wonder that nearly 75% of the 45,000 journeys between Bradford and Leeds each day are made by car? Bradford’s unsatisfactory rail link is a perfect example of the wider problem. For too long, ambitious transport projects in the north have been passed over, while billions have been spent on similar projects down south.

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case about the need for regional rebalancing. Does she agree that the Department for Transport needs to make changes to the transport business case methodology so that it takes account of the wider economic benefits that can flow from investment in transport, rather than just journey time savings for large numbers of existing transport users?

[Judith Cummins]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, as always.

The establishment of the first sub-national transport body, Transport for the North, is a welcome step in correcting the regional imbalance, and I am particularly pleased that its strategic plan includes details of the northern powerhouse railway, including a new station in Bradford. In order to make this plan a reality, the Government must ensure that Transport for the North has the powers and, crucially, the money it needs. One way to quickly and effectively start making progress would be to unpick the skewed value-for-money formula used by the Department for Transport to make investment decisions, and to create a new formula that stops favouring areas with historically high levels of investment.

Bradford and the north face particular challenges and opportunities, and these opportunities require real action by the Government. Above all, they require a real financial commitment from the Government in order to address the historical level of underfunding of transport in the north. This is the only way to unlock the north’s economic potential and to put fairness back into our transport system.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

May I start by thanking you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for your kindness in allowing me not to wear my jacket while I nurse my broken arm? I must confess that it is a transport-related injury. I tripped and fell while running to catch a tram, which is rather embarrassing given that I chair the all-party parliamentary light rail group.

In the short time available, I will make some general points about the quality of transport debates that we have in this country. I have been involved in transport debates for almost all the time that I have been in this House, either on the Select Committee on Transport or as the Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary. I sometimes find these debates rather depressing because this country is very good at finding reasons not to do something.

The Transport Committee is currently giving scrutiny to the airport national policy statement about whether we should have a third runway at Heathrow. I do not want to prejudge the outcome of our inquiry, but we were presented with a whole series of arguments as to why it should not happen. Had the recommendation been that we should expand Gatwick, different people would have made the same arguments. Time and again the decision on where to build extra airport capacity would be kicked into the long grass.

Just outside my constituency boundary is a lovely little village called Cublington. I mention it because it featured in the Roskill commission, which 50 years ago started its inquiry about the location of extra airport capacity in the south-east, and we are still debating that half a century later. It was the same with HS1. Before it was built, it was going to scar the garden of England. Now that it is up and running, there are few objections. Indeed, people want extra stations on the line. When I researched the HS2 debate, I found out that this House voted against the west coast main line in the 19th century because it deemed that canals would be a perfectly adequate means of intercity transport. As we consider where we are going to invest vast sums of money—both public and private—in order to upgrade our transport network, please let us do so with a vision of what can be done; do not find constant arguments as to why it should not happen.

I turn to rail in particular. Now, there are problems with franchising. I am not going to defend the system in its entirety, as it is one that needs to evolve. But when there is a problem, the answer is not just to criticise the whole system and say that we have to renationalise everything. Those who advocate mass nationalisation might care to read the words of the French Prime Minister talking about state-run SNCF today:

“The dilapidated network, delays, abysmal debt…The situation is…untenable. The French…pay more…for a public service that works less and less well”.

The point is that there are good and bad in all forms of transport. We need to raise our game and think about what works, not get involved in ideological debates.

Similarly, every year we hear this argument that fare increases are the fault of the privatised system, yet there were inflation-busting fare increases year after year under nationalised British Rail. The debate is on the mix between what the farebox provides for revenue and what central taxation provides. There is a legitimate argument both ways, but let us get away from the stale argument every year that it is the fault of the private sector and that nationalisation would be wonderful.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I do not wish to get into the argument about why franchising is not currently working, but does the hon. Gentleman share my concerns that the supplementary estimates show that receipts are expected to be £248.6 million lower than expected? Although the Treasury is providing an extra £60 million to partially offset that, £188 million of income still needs to be found from existing budgets. Does he share my hope that the Minister will address where that money in going to come from given the shortfall in revenues from franchises?

[Iain Stewart]

Revenues go up and down; it is very difficult to forward-plan the income from a railway. The Virgin Trains East Coast situation is not a problem of a line losing money or failing on passenger satisfaction. It is making money—just not as much as was forecast. That is one of the reforms of the franchising system that I wish to see.

Look at Network Rail—a public body. It has problems and has mismanaged some projects, Great Western electrification being the prime example. However, let us also praise it when it gets things right. The Reading and Nottingham station upgrades have been a success and many other projects have been delivered on time and on budget. No system is intrinsically bad or good. My point today is that we should raise the quality of the discussion and not get locked into this stale old debate that too often plagues transport discourse in this country.

My final point in the few seconds that remain is please let us put the passenger front and centre of our conversations. Too often, the transport industry works in silos: it looks at what the rail or bus provision is. We have to look at door-to-door transport, embrace new technology and the opportunities that it brings. When we invest in new trains—enormous numbers of new rolling stock will be coming on to the network in the next couple of years—let us make them comfortable. Technologically, they are brilliant but a lot of them are dashed uncomfortable. Let us put the passenger first and raise our game with a proper debate about how we invest in and improve our transport infrastructure.