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Category: Transportation

  • Mark Harper – 2023 Speech on Transforming Transport in the North

    Mark Harper – 2023 Speech on Transforming Transport in the North

    The speech made by Mark Harper, the Secretary of State for Transport, in Newcastle on 6 March 2023.

    Introduction

    It’s great to be here in Newcastle, in what is my first visit to the North-East as Transport Secretary. And let me start, first of all, by thanking Martin Tugwell for the invitation.

    Transport for the North is a valued partner, a tireless champion of boosting connectivity across the region, both in public and in private. And your conference today will be a reminder, to anyone who needed it, that the success of the UK is increasingly tied to the success of the North of England.

    And, to you Lord McLoughlin, or Patrick as I know you better, although frankly for the first large number of years that I knew him, he wasn’t called Patrick, he was called ‘Chief’, as we call the Chief Whip. It was a job he carried out so effectively overseeing party discipline. That it all but guaranteed my attendance here today. There seems to be a theme of former Chief Whips becoming former Transport Secretaries.

    Like Patrick, I was part of the government that, almost a decade ago, actually launched the northern powerhouse. The idea that by pooling the region’s talent, leveraging its fantastic academic institutions, and connecting its great urban centres, we wanted to turn individually strong northern cities into a collective unit, that was greater than the sum of its parts.

    It was an unashamedly ambitious target. And we knew it wouldn’t happen overnight.

    Yet despite the turbulence of recent years – from a global pandemic to now a war on the continent of Europe – there has never been a question of our commitment to the North ever being placed on the backburner, as some have claimed.

    In fact, we redoubled our efforts to boost connectivity, accelerate devolution and revive former industrial heartlands into new engines of economic growth.

    The spirit of that original mission, which we launched 9 years ago, is still alive today. A fundamental belief that a better connected, well-funded, and strongly represented North of England. isn’t just essential for this region, but for the stronger economy the whole country needs.

    Delivery

    We all know the benefits of improved connectivity. The investment it attracts, the jobs it creates and the talent it retains. So even in this tough fiscal climate – where last November, the Chancellor had to make difficult, yet responsible, decisions to restore economic stability – we protected transport infrastructure spending across the North.

    Take major roads. Across the region, we’ve invested £2.5 billion in the Strategic Road Network over the past 3years. Including upgrades to the Newcastle-Gateshead Bypass, improvements to the A63 at Castle Street in Hull, and just last year, completing the £110 million A1 Scotswood to North Brunton scheme. These will not just increase safety and connectivity, but reduce congestion, which acts as a drag on our economy.

    But we’re also giving people alternatives to the car.

    Our National Bus Strategy, and I agree about the importance of buses – around twice as many journeys are made by bus than rail. Our National Bus Strategy transfers greater control over fares and timetables to local authorities, while giving operators the freedom to invest and innovate.

    And it’s working. Because not only have I welcomed the North-East’s and North of Tyne’s Bus Service Improvement Plan, today, I can confirm they will receive £118 million this year to deliver improved services for passengers.

    Now our commitment to buses stretches across the region, and indeed across the country. Last month, I extended both the Bus Recovery Grant and the £2 Fare Cap, which continues our support for a sector that’s still recovering from the pandemic.

    Here in the North-East, we’re also delivering a better railway with services on the East Coast Mainline bouncing back after the pandemic, with LNER the fastest recovering operator over the last 18 months. We’ll soon roll out single-leg pricing for tickets across the LNER network, giving passengers more flexibility in how they travel.

    And with the new Azuma Intercity Express Trains having been built in Newton Aycliffe, passengers in the North-East are riding on trains built in the North-East.

    But that’s not all. Open access operators such as Lumo are providing greater choice in this city, by making use of extra capacity on the network. And on the Tyne and Wear Metro, passengers will soon ride on a new fleet of modern trains, thanks to an investment of over £300 million from my department.

    But today, I am delighted to put right an historic wrong that’s lasted for 60 years. I can confirm we will reopen the Northumberland Line next year, making available the necessary funding that will build 6 new stations across the route. Connecting towns such as Ashington and Blyth to Newcastle, and breathing new economic life into those communities, delivered in partnership with Northumberland Council.

    Now, across the North, local leaders have long called for more ambitious rail infrastructure spending, as was touched on – and this government has answered that call.

    And I think it’s worth saying that any government has to be honest. Easy promises to get applause at events and conferences like this around the country, are not credible if people don’t have plans to pay for them. Ministers also have a duty to the taxpayer to set out well thought-through, costed promises.

    This government is committed £96 billion Integrated Rail Plan that we set out, which will deliver high speed rail to Manchester and transform journeys across the Pennines. And work is already underway. Like between Church Fenton and York, which includes some of the busiest stretches of railway in the North. A combination of electrification, track replacement and modern signalling will lead to faster and more efficient journeys for passengers. Which is part of the major upgrade to the 70-mile Trans-Pennine route. Which is a central government commitment that surpasses what we spent on Crossrail.

    However, one thing is obvious. Even with that investment, the single biggest investment since the creation of the railways right here in the North-East. That will be quickly forgotten if operators can’t deliver services aren’t up to scratch.

    If passengers are regularly let down by industrial action, as a result of the unions refusing to put reasonable pay offers to their members. The Rail Minister, Huw Merriman and I have made it clear to the relevant Managing Directors that services on Avanti West Coast and Trans-Pennine Express routes must improve. It’s good to see Avanti weekday services are starting to improve, but there is more to do so passengers don’t face unacceptable levels of disruption of the past 9 months.

    But also, if trade unions continue to reject pay offers, and refuse to undertake reforms, that are accepted in any modern industry, then it will be impossible to provide consistent and reliable services for passengers. It is not up for debate, about privatisation or nationalisation, it’s about building a modern railway which works as one coherent system in partnership.

    Patrick spoke about my George Bradshaw address, and that was about partnership between the state doing that part of the job that it needs to do, and the private sector doing its part to get more passengers back on the railway. It’s about improving the passengers’ experience, and if we don’t do that and get more revenue, that’s the only way we will build a sustainable and long-term railway, which isn’t at the mercy of antiquated working practices that prevent a reliable 7 day a week railway or hold us back from creating resilient infrastructure.

    Reform won’t just benefit passengers and freight customers, but also the workforce, who want to be part of a growing and sustainable industry, and it’s only that that can fund the pay rises that they expect. Almost the entire industry recognises the need to move forward, including the TSSA, whose members recently accepted a 5% plus 4% pay offer over 2 years.

    It’s a great sadness that the RMT have refused to put that same offer to their members, seemingly intent on thwarting the modernisation of the railways. My message to them is simple: reconsider, a best and final pay offer has been made, your members deserve the final say, let them make that decision in a referendum.

    Devolution

    Now, I’ve spoken about what we’re delivering for the North, but just as important are the powers we’re devolving to the North. Over 75% of the region is now covered by devolution deals, including the North-East, which will form a new Mayoral Combined Authority under a single Mayor, and with a £1.4 billion settlement to fund local priorities.

    You don’t need to look far to see what a determined and empowered Mayor can achieve. Ben Houchen has revived Teeside International Airport from the brink of closure. And opened the largest freeport in the country, which will attract investment and jobs. What Ben and others are doing across the North is important to me. Not just because as a small and big ‘c’ conservative, I’ve long championed the principle of more power in local hands. But because as a constituency MP in rural Gloucestershire for almost 20 years, I empathise with those who feel that Whitehall doesn’t always understand the transport needs of local communities. It touched on the needs of rural communities, for example, to make sure we’ve got transport that fits our needs.

    So whilst central governments must always ensure value for money for the taxpayer, I firmly believe more decisions should be made by local people, in local areas, and for local needs. So, through the Levelling Up Fund and Sustainable Transport Settlements, we’ve made over £3 billion in funding available for regional leaders to transform local transport, according to their priorities. That will lead to upgrades to the Sheffield Supertram, more cycling and walking schemes in the Tees Valley, and better bus routes between Leeds and Wakefield.

    But even the idea of a central government pulling the strategic levers from London feels outdated. That’s why we’ve set up Treasury North in Darlington. The National Infrastructure Bank and a Department for Transport office in Leeds, all clear signs that this Government is putting northern people and businesses at the heart of how this country is run.

    Decarbonisation

    Finally, let me mention how transport is delivering the sustainable economic recovery the country needs.

    The Prime Minister has reiterated our commitment to the 2050 net zero target – both through words and action. We now have departments of state dedicated to net zero, to science and innovation, and in the case of the DfT to transport decarbonisation. It means, right across Cabinet, decisions are being made to drive green growth.

    For transport, the source of most emissions is our roads. So, to support the rising popularity of electric vehicles, I’ve announced £56 million in public and industry funding to ensure local authorities can transform the availability of charging infrastructure. And this includes funding for nine local authorities in the North, such as Durham and Sunderland.

    We’re cleaning up buses too. The City of York and West Yorkshire authorities will be able to introduce over 30 new British made zero emission buses, thanks to a share of a £25 million investment I announced last week.

    However, we cannot overlook the North-East’s critical role in this future of clean travel. Look at what’s happening in Teesside, thanks to DfT funding, its Transport Hub is exploring how we use hydrogen to power some of our heaviest forms of transport.

    And industry is taking note, with BP and Protium already announcing plans for large scale green hydrogen production in the area. And with Port Clarence and Wilton International set to be the sites of new Sustainable Aviation Fuel production plants.

    This very corner of the country is powering a new green industrial revolution, 200 years after powering the first one.

    Conclusion

    So, increasing connectivity for the North. Devolving more power to the North. And decarbonising our economy, led by the North. That is our commitment to this region.

    And we cannot afford to fail. Because to grow the economy, to deal with the cost of living, and to win the race to net zero: the UK economy must fire on all cylinders.

    And it will be this government, led by the first Conservative Prime Minister from a northern constituency for over half a century, armed with a historic electoral mandate from the North, that will build on the foundations laid over the past 9 years, ensuring the North’s best years aren’t consigned to history, but actually lie ahead.

    Thank you.

  • Rachel Hopkins – 2023 Parliamentary Question on UK Automotive Exports

    Rachel Hopkins – 2023 Parliamentary Question on UK Automotive Exports

    The parliamentary question asked by Rachel Hopkins, the Labour MP for Luton South, in the House of Commons on 9 February 2023.

    Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)

    What steps she is taking to help increase automotive exports.

    The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Ms Nusrat Ghani)

    The Department is working across Whitehall and with industry to secure export-led investment as the sector makes the transition to zero-emission vehicles, including new electric vehicle models, along with battery gigafactories and the electric vehicle supply chain. We have a dedicated export support system throughout the UK in the shape of our international trade advisers, ensuring that the automotive industry is the country’s biggest single exporter of goods, exporting nearly 80% of vehicle production—about 6% of the UK’s total exported goods.

    Rachel Hopkins

    If we are to continue to drive British automotive exports, it is critical that automotive businesses such as Vauxhall in Luton can make the transition to manufacturing electric vehicles effectively. The rules of origin from 2024 onwards highlight the need to attract the wider electrified supply chain to the UK as soon as possible. How is the Minister working with the automotive sector to expand our domestic electric vehicle supply chain—especially in respect of batteries—to avoid any future tariffs when rules of origin come into effect?

    Ms Ghani

    The hon. Lady will hopefully find some comfort in the fact that I have many meetings with the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and have met the automotive sector multiple times to deal with this issue. We are very much aware of the rules-of-origin issue, which is why we are investing so much in batteries. In particular, the Faraday battery challenge is a £541 million project to help us to develop new battery technologies. I have mentioned already that I was in Cape Town to deal with the diversification of access to critical minerals in supply chains to ensure that we can process them and manufacture here.

    Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)

    Would the Minister like to congratulate Group Lotus in my constituency, which exports more than 70% of its car production? Would she like to take the opportunity to come to Hethel to see the new Lotus Evija supercar, which can do nought to 180 mph in nine seconds?

    Ms Ghani

    I am not sure that I can speak as far as that car goes, but I am more than happy to come to Hethel to visit Group Lotus. The amount of progress that has been made by experts, academics and scientists when it comes not only to zero emission vehicles but to speed is remarkable.

  • Lee Waters – 2023 Statement on Rural Transport in Wales

    Lee Waters – 2023 Statement on Rural Transport in Wales

    The statement made by Lee Waters, the Welsh Deputy Minister for Climate Change, on 8 February 2023.

    Wales’ rural communities make up around a third of our population, and are spread across all parts of the country. Providing access to sustainable, safe and reliable public transport is vital not only to achieving our climate change goals but to help people access the services, employment, cultural and education opportunities to enable them to thrive.

    I was pleased to be able to host a series of round tables with local authority leaders and transport experts from across Wales at the end of last year to discuss our plans in more detail, and would like to thank them for helping to shape our approach.

    We recognise that the transport needs of communities in rural Wales will be different to those in more urban areas, and it is important to work with those communities to plan the types of public transport services they will need. It can’t be a ‘one size fits all’ solution; each community has its own requirements and challenges that will impact what works best for the people that live, work and visit them.

    I was heartened to see the focus on rural transport in the North Wales Transport Commission, who identified the need to prioritise schemes that demonstrate better handling of key rural-to-rural connections. It recommends that new and more sustainable travel options such as car clubs, car sharing, cargo cycles, e-scooters and e-cycles. It also suggested effective workplace travel planning should be considered, an essential step in enabling people to think and act differently about the way they travel.

    Llwybr Newydd – the Wales Transport Strategy – sets out our approach to developing a series of pathways centred on topics which are of strategic importance. They cut across different modes and sectors and are designed to pull together our commitments and plans on these topics in a way that allows people to easily track the progress both we as Welsh Government are making along with our local, regional and national delivery partners.

    It is vital that we seek to find sustainable public transport models which are both tailored to the needs of rural communities, but also interface with more urban transport networks so that people can travel from urban to rural areas and vice versa with as little friction as possible.

    Our Rural Pathway takes a hub-and-spoke approach. It will help those in the most isolated communities better access their local village or town. From there they will have a wider range of public transport and active travel choices to travel locally or to connect them to their nearest transport interchange for longer journeys.

    The development and delivery of our rural pathway is already underway. We will be submitting a proposal shortly to the UK Government’s Union Connectivity Fund to develop plans to increase capacity along the Cambrian and Heart of Wales rail lines, and in doing so increase cross-border connectivity.

    Working with Sustrans, our e-move pilot has shown the potential of free medium-term e-bike and e-cargo bike loans to support local communities. We will continue to develop out long-term approach to support people to take advantage of e-bikes for local journeys across Wales, including support for them to purchase them.

    The new Sherpa service in Snowdonia, which sees electric busses minimising the use of cars within the National Park, is already providing new opportunities for local residents and visitors to see Snowdonia in a new and greener way. It is an approach which we will take and look to roll out in other areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks across Wales.

    Buses are the backbone of our public transport service. They carry three times as many passengers as trains, getting people across Wales to work and school, allowing us to meet family and friends, and offering a key lifeline for people in Wales who do not have access to a car. Our Bus Reform legislation will enable us to deliver a bus system which is governed and designed to serve the public interest, not just those routes which are commercially viable.

    As well as new technologies, new service models will play an important part in allowing people to access public transport in a way and at a time that best suits their needs. Our Fflecsi pilots have shown that demand-responsive travel can provide a more flexible and adaptable service, with particular success in rural communities. We will examine the findings of this pilot carefully and embed them into our rural pathway framework for regions across Wales to exploit.

    Electric car clubs also offer a new way of looking at car usage; both for those who want to use their car less, or may only use it some of the time, and for people who may struggle to afford the high cost of running a car. We are working in partnership with Powys County Council, Transport for Wales, and a range of partners to look at how we can increase provision of community-based car clubs.

    Community transport is an important part of our transport system in Wales, supporting vulnerable people to access essential services. We will, through Transport for Wales, work with our Community Transport partners to look at ways we can best support both the people who use this vital service and those who give their time to run it.

    We understand the importance of the strategic road network for rural Wales. Our roads are important assets and must be maintained. They also play a vital part in enabling modal shift to active travel and public transport. We will shortly publish the report from the independent roads review plus our position on the future of road investment to ensure that projects we fund are aligned to the delivery of our transport strategy ambitions and priorities.

    Our delivery pathways also provide a framework to support the development of Regional Transport Plans, which will be developed for North, West, Mid and South East Wales by the regional Corporate Joint Committees (CJCs). It will allow each region to easily identify the different range of interventions they could make, and how they can implement them in a way that is consistent with Llwybr Newydd. These will be live frameworks, being updated as we test and develop new and innovative services and infrastructure solutions.

    We are literally taking a Llwybr Newydd – a new path. The Wales Transport Strategy sets out a new way of thinking that places people and climate change at the front and centre of our transport system. This is something that we have to do; if we are going to protect the lives of our children, we need to achieve net zero by 2050. And in order to do that, we need to both change the way we travel, and rewire the system so it supports us to do this. Our rural pathway is one of many steps on the journey to achieve this.

  • Lee Waters – 2023 Statement on North Wales Transport Commission’s Progress

    Lee Waters – 2023 Statement on North Wales Transport Commission’s Progress

    The statement made by Lee Waters, the Welsh Deputy Minister for Climate Change, on 26 January 2023.

    I welcome this report from the North Wales Transport Commission. A significant amount of evidence-gathering and analysis has been undertaken and I thank the Commission for providing such detailed consideration of the transport issues facing north Wales.

    I met with Lord Burns and the Commissioners while they were in Bangor and was struck by their enthusiasm and commitment to making real change happen as a result of this work.

    The Commission’s Progress Statement identifies its emerging thoughts and identifies where the opportunities are for a better transport system, focusing on where we can make it easier for everyone to travel more sustainably.

    We hear a lot of discussion about longer-distance routes and car journeys.  However, the Commission’s analysis shows that the majority of journeys made in the region are short in length and to the same or neighbouring area. These are the trips that are suited to walking, cycling or public transport and this is where improved public transport and active travel networks can make modal shift more achievable and appealing – giving people good opportunities to change how they travel for local, everyday journeys.

    Lord Burns will now lead a period of engagement with stakeholders to test the findings of the report before submitting their interim and final recommendations.

    In the meantime, the Welsh Government is moving ahead with action to enhance connectivity across north Wales, and I will shortly be providing members with an update on progress with the north Wales metro; but I am pleased that the Commission has already identified some of this work as a priority for improved public transport to key employment and development sites. This includes planned improvements for connectivity to HS2, direct services between Wrexham and Liverpool and the new station at Deeside.

    I have asked the Commission to also consider the resilience of access to and from Ynys Mon in light of the recent closure of the Menai Bridge.

    I look forward to receiving further reports later this year. The Commission is keen to hear people’s views, and I would encourage responses from all with an interest in the issues raised and the potential solutions.

    The report can be found here: https://www.gov.wales/north-wales-transport-commission-progress-statement-january-2023

  • Mark Harper – 2023 Keynote Speech on the Future of the Railways at the George Bradshaw Address

    Mark Harper – 2023 Keynote Speech on the Future of the Railways at the George Bradshaw Address

    The speech made by Mark Harper, the Secretary of State for Transport, at the Institute for Civil Engineers in London on 7 February 2023.

    Good evening and thank you to Andy Bagnall and his team at Rail Partners for organising this event and for inviting me to deliver what is my first rail speech since becoming Transport Secretary.

    What a fantastic setting this is, surrounded by reminders of Britain’s glorious engineering history and Bradshaw in whose name we meet today (7 February 2023). Whose timetables brought order to the chaos of the Victorian network is as much a part of rail’s story as Stephenson, Brunel and others honoured throughout this building.

    I would also like to pay tribute to Adrian Shooter who sadly passed away in December. Over the past 30 years, few have played a bigger role in the growth and modernisation of the railways and I’m sure he’s missed by many a friend and colleague here today.

    I realise I’m the second Transport Secretary to give this prestigious address. And I’m pleased to see Patrick in his seat. But me and Lord McLoughlin, Patrick as we all know him, or chief as I used to call him, have a bit more in common. We both hail from working class backgrounds: my dad a labourer, his a coal miner. We both grew up in historic railway towns: Swindon in my case and Stafford in his. And we were both promoted from the whips office to running the Department for Transport. Though admittedly, he was a bit faster than me I spent an interlude on the backbenches.

    Now, 6 years may not seem like a long time but, as Andy says, during that period we’ve since left the EU, emerged from a global pandemic, had 2 general elections and my party may have had one or two changes in leadership. Yet the more things have changed outside the railways, the more they seem to have stayed the same inside.

    Patrick’s 2016 Bradshaw Address was a passionate call for a more flexible, more accountable and more joined-up railway. That still rings true today, as do the reflections of previous Bradshaw speakers. Lord Hendy’s case for a whole system railway in 2018. Keith Williams, a year later, with his relentless and right focus on passengers and even Rick Haythornthwaite’s warning at the inaugural Bradshaw Address in 2011 of a disillusioned public not trusting the way our railways are run. Those all sound eerily familiar.

    So, I’ve spent my first few months in this job listening to the experts, indeed to many people in this room, drawing on my experience in government and many years in business, to understand what’s holding back meaningful change and how we move forward.

    Modernisation

    There’s clearly a lot of frustration in the industry. There’s a widespread desire to end the sense of drift. By moving on from re-diagnosing the industry’s ills to getting on with fixing them. The government’s policy is clear. The Plan for Rail has already been announced to the House of Commons in May 2021 so delivering that policy, moving from the words to action that is my priority.

    Because the railways, quite frankly, aren’t fit for purpose. We’re mired in industrial action, which lets down passengers and freight customers down. And historically unable to deliver major improvements at good value for the taxpayer. Britain is yearning for a modern railway that meets the needs of the moment. One reliable enough to be the 7-day-a-week engine for growth businesses expect. Nimble enough for post pandemic travel, whilst allowing more flexibility for freight and efficient enough when public spending is rightly scrutinised like never before.

    The railways need fundamental reform and that is what we will deliver. And what I will try to set out this evening is how we re-energise that process. Freeing reform from the sidings and getting it back onto the mainline.

    Context

    But first, I must provide some important context. In putting an end to last year’s unwelcome political and economic turbulence this government promised to be straight with the public about the difficult choices ahead. We set out a plan to restore economic stability and that plan is working.

    We’ve seen a significant settling of the market, we’ve reassured investors, calmed the markets and strengthened the currency. It’s a strong base from which to deliver the Prime Minister’s 2023 economic priorities: halve inflation, growing the economy, and reducing debt.

    It is testament to this industry’s huge economic potential that even amidst a challenging fiscal climate we gave full backing to the £96 billion Integrated Rail Plan.

    The largest single investment ever made in our railways will take HS2 from Euston to Manchester. Northern Powerhouse Rail across the Pennines. East West Rail between Oxford and Cambridge. And that has the Chancellor’s full support.

    We’re not wasting any time. In December, I saw the huge construction effort underway at the site of Curzon St Station in Birmingham. It will be the first new intercity terminus built since the 19th century. Attracting tens of thousands of jobs and sparking housing and commercial regeneration across the city.

    Broken model

    Don’t take my word for it go and talk to Andy Street and you’ll get a very passionate case about the transformation that HS2 is bringing to his city.

    But we risk wasting that future infrastructure spending if our railway model is stuck in the past and thanks to Keith’s painstaking work, we know what the underlying issues are. A fragmented structure that quickly forgets the customer. Decision making with too little accountability, but with too much centralisation. And a private sector rightly criticised for poor performance but with too few levers to change it. An industry in “no man’s land” as Andrew Haines correctly described it in his Beesley lecture.

    And in the end it’s rail’s customers that suffer. Like on the East Coast Mainline, where passengers still await the full benefits of billions of pounds in taxpayer investment and years of infrastructure upgrades. I know this first hand. As a backbench MP, when I was trying to get a Sunday train from my constituency to London, I remember constantly refreshing the First Great Western timetable to find half the trains weren’t running. Like many passengers, I had no choice but to give up and take the car instead.

    Andrew, who was then running First Group, probably remembers my rather irate emails from the station platform, interrogating him about why the service was so unreliable. Four months into this job, I now know why. I possibly owe him an overdue apology. It wasn’t entirely his fault. Because Sunday services are essentially dependent on drivers volunteering for overtime. Which means, despite best efforts, we can’t run a reliable 7-day-a-week railway on which customers can depend. It’s why I and the Rail Minister, Huw Merriman, have been clear throughout this period of industrial action that modernising working practices must be part of reform.

    Pandemic impact

    Finally, the pandemic has made a bad problem worse, a lot worse. Thanks to hybrid working, an economic model dependent on 5-day commuting is out of date. Take season ticket sales, which are at just 28% of pre-COVID levels.

    Unsurprisingly, and you don’t need a chartered accountant like me to tell you this, the impact on the industry’s bottom line has been stark. Revenue is around £125-175 million lower each month and costs keep rising year on year.

    Any other industry would have collapsed years ago but the railways have only survived because of the taxpayer and the public purse. The source of over 70% of income over the past 2 years at a cost of £1,000 per household. I won’t mince my words: operating the railways is currently financially unsustainable and it isn’t fair to continue asking taxpayers to foot the bill. Most of them don’t regularly use the railways. Including plenty of my constituents in the Forest of Dean.

    But they find themselves subsidising an industry that delivers only 1.5% and 2% of all journeys that are taken by the public. That disproportionately serves commuters in the south-east and whose funding comes at the expense of other vital transport upgrades. At a time when sacrifices are being made across the economy we must be aware of the trade-offs when it comes to public spending and remind ourselves, as Patrick rightly said in his address, that the Department for Transport isn’t the “Department for the Railways”.

    So, we have a broken model. Unable to adapt to customer needs and financially unsustainable. Left untreated, we will drive passengers away with poor performance, that will lead to fewer services, that will drive more passengers away and so on and so on. Only major reform can break that cycle of decline and Keith’s blueprint is the right place to start. So yes, we will create a more customer focussed and joined up railway. But we want to go further, I want to go further, and actually enhance the role of the private sector. Not just in running services but in maximising competition, innovation, and revenue growth right across the industry. Which the benefits of the private sector has delivered time and again.

    Customers

    Let me start, however, with customers. To raise revenue, we must instil a customer first culture. That means reliable services, comfortable journeys and accessible stations. But it also means tackling the issue which tops passenger lists of biggest concerns, which is fares and ticketing. With 55 million fares available how can anyone feel confident they’re getting the best value for money? Ticketing should be hassle free, something you barely have to think about. Which is why, today, I can confirm the extension of Pay-As-You-Go ticketing, with 52 stations across the south-east set to be completed this year including on Chiltern, London Northwestern, and C2C services.

    Ticket prices should also be fairer but often there is little difference between the cost of a single or a return. Operators are often unable to significantly reduce prices on quieter services. So, after LNER’s successful single leg pricing trial we’ll extend it to other parts of the LNER network from the spring and then carefully consider the results of those before extending more widely. It means a flexible single fare will always be half the cost of the equivalent return – giving passengers more flexibility and better value. This is not about increasing fares, I want passengers to benefit from simpler ticketing that meets their needs.

    We’re also going to learn from the aviation sector and better manage capacity as well as raise revenue by trialling demand-based pricing on some LNER services too.

    Yet, passengers aren’t the industry’s only customers. Carrying tens of billions of pounds worth of goods we cannot overstate rail freight’s untapped potential for green growth. So I intend to create a duty to ensure the new industry structure realises that potential with a dedicated Strategic Freight Unit tasked with creating better safeguards, more national coordination and, later this year, listening to what was said earlier, setting a long-term freight growth target.

    Structure

    However, turning towards customers requires us to turn away from the current industry structure. So, we will establish Great British Railways, or GBR. As we prepare for that, we’ll pick up the pace of reform. I am pleased to announce that the winner of the GBR HQ competition will be revealed before Easter. And by the summer, we will respond to the consultation on GBR’s legislative powers.

    The industry has long called for a guiding mind to coordinate the network so GBR will be responsible for track and train, as well as revenue and cost. Which means finally treating the railway as the whole system it should be rather than a web of disparate interests that it’s become. Passengers won’t longer face the excuse-making and blame-shifting of years past. Instead, GBR will be wholeheartedly customer-focussed. Serving as the single point of accountability for the performance of the railway and crucially, following ministerial direction, the GBR Transition Team will develop the guiding long-term strategy for rail which we will publish later this year and I hope will provide strategic direction to the sector.

    Yet there remains a lot of misinformation about GBR. So let me tackle some of these myths head on.

    This is not going to be Network Rail 2.0, nor a return to British Rail. Taking politics out of the railways is the only way to build a truly commercially led industry and, for me, that is non-negotiable. That’s why GBR will be an arm’s length body ensuring a balanced approach to both infrastructure and operations. With both sides getting a seat at the table and both sides delivering an efficient, high performing railway for customers.

    The role of ministers is to provide strategic direction and be accountable to Parliament. It is not the role of ministers to pore over operational decisions. For example, I shouldn’t need to approve whether a passenger train ought to be removed from the timetable to allow a freight train to run instead, as I was doing earlier today. That will be left to industry experts in 5 regional GBR divisions working in partnership with regional bodies such as the Greater Manchester and the West Midlands Combined Authorities.

    Similarly, we can’t take the other extreme view. Public oversight of our critical infrastructure is needed. Especially to support those passenger services that don’t turn a profit, yet still play an important economic and social role. That’s why we need a pragmatic partnership between state and industry, harnessing the necessary oversight of the state. With the dynamism, innovation and efficiency of the private sector.

    This integrated model works, and not just with the railways. That was how we achieved one of the quickest and most successful COVID vaccine rollouts in the world, and its what we need to do in the railways.

    Private sector offer

    Which brings me to the final area of reform. To enhance the role of the private sector, which I see as central to the future of the railways. Under privatisation and thanks to a resilient and world class supply chain, passenger numbers doubled to 1.75 billion by the eve of the pandemic. With private sector investment in rolling stock reached nearly £7 billion over the past 10 years.

    I don’t want to turn my back on that commercial expertise. The National Rail Contracts and current overcentralised approach are temporary, a short-term fix that has helped steer the industry through the pandemic and this will be phased out.

    I want the private sector to play its most important role in our railways yet. To reinvigorate the sector, drive innovation and most importantly, attract more customers to the railway. It will do so in partnership with GBR. GBR will help set the right commercial conditions across several key areas.

    There will be new Passenger Service Contracts that will balance the right performance incentives with simple, commercially driven targets. But they won’t be a one-size fits all approach. In the past, we know some operators took on more financial risk than they could handle. So, now that risk will sit where it is best managed and that includes with operators, but only where it drives the best outcomes for passengers and taxpayers. We shouldn’t be afraid to let managing directors of train operating companies actually manage and direct their operations. Which is not what they’re able to do at the moment.

    We’ll also open up railway data and systems, whilst lowering barriers to entry for the industry. For ticketing, that means a more competitive retail market and I will welcome new players to spur more innovation and give passengers the services they need.

    We will expand commercial opportunities around land and property near stations. In Japan, rail companies take full advantage of these investments, generating even more income for the railways and we should look to do the same.

    And finally, we will support more open access services where it benefits passengers and taxpayers. We’ve seen this work well with Hull Trains and Grand Central as well as with Lumo on the East Coast Mainline. All offering passengers greater choice and more direct links. Open access operators will play an important role in the industry’s future, especially as we grow new markets and make best use of spare capacity on the network.

    Conclusion

    Let me finish by saying that despite being the second Transport Secretary to deliver this address I’m probably the first to be given a biblical nickname. Modern Railways Magazine described the rail industry as waiting for “Moses Harper to come back from the mountain with tablets of stone.” Whilst I’m, of course, flattered by that comparison, unlike Moses, I do plan to live long enough to reach the promised land of rail reform. And whilst my words this evening have not been divinely inspired they do have the full support of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, which, in politics, is the next best thing.

    As a whole government, we are pressing ‘go’ on rail reform. Day-to-day work will be ably led by the Rail Minister, Huw Merriman, who’s here tonight and has long championed the need for a reformed railway, including when he was chairman of the Transport Select Committee. He will provide the stability and leadership needed, while also giving the industry freedom to deliver meaningful change and I hope you will all rise to the challenge:

    • to put customers first
    • to realise the benefits of GBR
    • to help enhance the role of the private sector

    Because only then can the railway earn the public trust it needs to grow.

    As we look ahead to the industry’s 200-year anniversary in 2025, this is our chance to resurrect some national pride in our railways. A chance to harness the political will that is there, the economic imperative and I believe the industry buy-in to build the modern railway Britain deserves.

    It’s a chance we cannot waste.

  • Mark Harper – 2023 Speech to the Airport Operators Association Conference

    Mark Harper – 2023 Speech to the Airport Operators Association Conference

    The speech made by Mark Harper, the Secretary of State for Transport, on 31 January 2023.

    Introduction

    It’s a pleasure to be here, delivering my first aviation speech since becoming Transport Secretary.

    You could be forgiven over the last year for thinking you perhaps have heard ministers using that line before. It’s been frustrating, I know, for an industry eager to get on with the business of growth…especially after the devastating impact of of the Covid pandemic over the last few years.

    So let me start by thanking all of you, not just for the hard work airports continued to do amidst last year’s political and economic turbulence, and that’s turbulence which I’m very pleased that this government – led by this Prime Minister – has ended, but also for the collaboration I’ve seen in the face of ongoing strike action at our borders. And I know you’ve heard earlier from Phil Douglas, the Director General of Border Force. And my department and Border Force have been working very closely with airports to make sure we have resourcing available and we minimise the disruption to the travelling public from that industrial action.

    I would also like to acknowledge the recent unfortunate news about the collapse of Flybe and our thoughts are obviously with those affected. We’re working in the department with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to help the passengers affected to access alternative travel arrangements, and pointing staff to the support available from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

    But I was also very pleased by the sector’s quick response not only with Ryanair, British Airways and EasyJet, stepping in with special fares for those passengers disrupted, but also the industry’s announcements around fast tracking recruitment processes, for the staff who sadly lost their jobs. All are actually welcome signs of a growing resilience within the sector and you’re focused on ensuring that you can retain and attract the skills and talent necessary for this industry to continue growing.

    It’s been 6 years since I was last in government. When I was last in government, aviation’s challenge wasn’t about whether it would grow….it was about by how much….and about whether the industry could keep pace with the rising demand. Pre-pandemic, we had the largest aviation sector in Europe with air transport and aerospace worth £22 billion to our national economy, providing nearly a quarter of a million jobs. Passenger numbers at UK airports had grown by over a third since 2009 and the eve of the pandemic saw the highest number ever.

    Recovery

    That conversation, however, quickly changed. And the last few years have been the toughest in this industry’s 100-year history. Where UK airports saw a 99% drop in passenger numbers at the height of the pandemic and globally, the sector faced a fall in passenger revenue of over £250 billion in 2021.

    Some of you may know that as a backbencher I watched that unfold. I led a group of MPs who wanted a balanced approach to COVID-19 restrictions. Outside of government, I felt one of the jobs of MPs was to hold the government to account, and ask tough questions about policy to make sure we made the right decisions. We did obviously have a duty to protect public health, but we also had a duty to business and workers. And the Prime Minister, while he was Chancellor, obviously put in a significant package of support for the economy.

    Every restriction introduced also needed a proper exit plan, so that we could safeguard both lives and livelihoods. And that was I think the right approach…and we put something like £8 billion into the aviation sector…and we moved further and faster than any other nation in re-opening our economy and borders as soon as it was safe to do so.

    Since then, and thanks to many in this room, we’ve managed to make sure that aviation, arguably the sector hardest hit by the pandemic, is showing robust signs of recovery. I know for example that Gatwick and Luton both will submit applications for modernisation and expansion programmes. Investments which represent a vote of confidence in aviation’s future. If approved, are set to generate significant benefits for passengers..

    We’re also seeing consistently busier airports and fuller flights, with passenger levels now at 85% of pre-pandemic levels. And where the industry struggled to meet this increased demand last year, the government stepped in, working with you to rebuild resilience.

    For example, our passenger charter gave the public confidence to travel. We accelerated the vetting process to speed up staff recruitment. But that’s not all. Today (31 January 2023), I can confirm that slots rules will return to normal this summer. But we’re maintaining the safety net introduced during COVID-19 and airlines can hand back 5% of slots to help minimise last minute cancellations.

    And I know some of you are trialling next generation security, so that this new technology will better detect prohibited items, allowing passengers to pass through security more swiftly. Just some of the measures that will not only support the sector’s recovery, but help us turn recovery into renewal.

    Aviation Council

    What renewal looks like is the remit of the Aviation Council, which I will be launching tomorrow. The council brings the full force of industry and government to bear on 10 key issues. Setting the industry on course for long term success, ensuring aviation turns its back on an industrial model no longer fit for purpose and moves towards a more sustainable one, including modern infrastructure, cleaner energy and an increasingly diverse pool of skills and talent.

    So let me take each of those in turn.

    Modernisation

    On modernisation pre-pandemic, thousands of aircraft navigated a complex network of routes to operate safely in our airspace. Mapped in the 1950s, this network has struggled to deal with the surge in growth of modern air travel. Causing delays for passengers as planes circle airports waiting to land. It affects local communities which suffer from excess noise and pollution and ultimately, it increases costs for the industry.

    The CAA, last week, launched a refreshed version of its Aviation Modernisation Strategy, to strengthen and upgrade our invisible infrastructure in the skies.

    Modernisation will mean quicker and quieter flights, more choice and value for passengers, and futureproofing our airspace to allow safe access for drones and even spacecraft. Something I didn’t realise I had responsibility for before I started in this job, but having had the chance to authorise Spaceport Cornwall I realised that’s also under my responsibilities. That plan is wholeheartedly backed by the government and we’ve provided £9.2 million in funding to support airports throughout this change.

    Now I realise some in this room will be frustrated at the speed of progress. And while it’s right that any modernisation aligns with our world leading safety, security and environmental standards, the aviation minister will continue working closely with the CAA and airports involved to drive this forward.

    Decarbonisation

    A more efficient and cleaner airspace brings me onto arguably this industry’s greatest challenge – decarbonisation. At current rates, aviation will become one of largest carbon emitting sectors by 2050. I don’t support the view that aviation must decline to meet our climate goals. But it must now earn the right to grow by weaning itself off fossil fuels. It’s why we’ve developed the Jet Zero Strategy, which set a 2050 net zero target for the sector.

    An ambitious, yes, but the early signs are encouraging, particularly around the use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Take Virgin Atlantic, who this year, thanks to government funding, will conduct the first ever net zero transatlantic flight. Its Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines will be powered by cooking oils that otherwise would have gone to waste. It will be a remarkable achievement, demonstrating UK leadership in an area that could support over 5,000 jobs by 2035.

    Fuels are just one part of decarbonising the industry. Airports are also playing a crucial role, with many of you already setting ambitious net zero targets. We’ll soon publish our call for evidence on a 2040 target for net zero airport operations something David Silk will expand on when he speaks to you later today.

    Skills and talent

    Finally, let me turn to skills and talent. I recognise that the pandemic saw swathes of the workforce face disruption and the immediate priority is to retain that talent. Already, the aviation skills recruitment platform has helped over 1,500 people find jobs and training. But we cannot talk about building a sector fit for the future if our approach to recruiting talent remains stuck in the past.

    When I was growing up back where I came from in a working-class household in Swindon, a career in aviation was never suggested as an option for people from my background. And even today, too many people still feel parts of the industry are not for them. But I was talking this morning actually about a fantastic initiative about getting more apprentices involved. And one of the team I was speaking to had actually been to a school in my constituency, where they’ve had people becoming degree apprentices working in the aerospace sector in Gloucestershire. Actually, when you talk to those young people and you listen to what they’ve learnt about the sector, they are enthused, excited about joining what is an exciting sector focused on the future, with all the opportunities in front of them.

    But there are too many people who think the industry is not for them. Look at professional pilots – only 6% are women. It can’t be right that we discount half the population, half of the skills and talent available for the sector. Training providers are largely concentrated in the south-east and high training costs put off those from poorer backgrounds. In fact I heard recently from some youngsters who were very keen to join the industry and become pilots, but had no idea how they would make the finances work from the backgrounds from which they came. Many are unaware of the range of careers offered by the industry, including corporate roles, data analysis, engineering and IT.

    And ultimately, it’s the industry that will lose out, unable to meet the challenges ahead with a workforce lacking in diversity of thought and experience. Through our Generation Aviation programme, we’re starting to put this right. Our new cohort of Aviation Ambassadors, representing the brightest and best of the industry, will go into schools and local communities to share their experiences and try and enthuse more people to want to join this fantastic industry.

    And tomorrow, I’ll announce the winners of the £700,000 Reach for the Sky Challenge Fund. Each winning project will open aviation up to the breadth of talent across the country, from engineering and flying lessons aimed at those from poorer backgrounds, to increasing accessibility for people with disabilities. It’s vital we send a clear message that aviation is for everyone.

    Conclusion

    I started by talking about the pace of change over the past 6 years. The conversation moving from seemingly limitless growth, then to survival and over the past year, to recovery. Now we’re able to start a more optimistic, conversation about the future. About an industry no longer constrained by outdated practices, but modernising its infrastructure and operations. No longer the poster child for environmental decline, but committed to a future of sustainable flight and attracting talent from every background.

    These are just some of the areas where aviation has a golden opportunity to move from recovery to renewal and I look forward to working with all of you to make that happen.

    Thank you.

  • Richard Holden – 2023 Speech on the Midlands Metro Extension

    Richard Holden – 2023 Speech on the Midlands Metro Extension

    The speech made by Richard Holden, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, in the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

    I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey) for securing this fantastic Adjournment debate. It has come at a particularly appropriate moment as I was in the west midlands just earlier today. I know that this is a vital project for him and for my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood), as well as for other Members in the region. I actually visited the Black Country Living Museum, but I have never been to the zoo, so I hope my hon. Friend might be able to take me there at some point.

    I met Andy Street today, and I mentioned this and other projects to him. As Minister for roads and local transport, I am always keen to get out and about, and I pledge to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency in the near future. He was very kind in his opening comments, and I pay tribute to him for the work he has done. I can tell the House that West Bromwich West may have been forgotten for 50 years under previous Members of Parliament, but it is now one of the few places I hear about in this House.

    The Government are wholeheartedly committed to delivering on their vision of levelling up all areas of our country, not least my hon. Friend’s constituency and the broader west midlands, ensuring that we have a transport network that caters for all users, helps to drive economic prosperity and minimises environmental impacts as far as possible. Responsibility for much of the transport connectivity in the west midlands, including the metro services, rests with the West Midlands Combined Authority and Andy Street, the region’s metro Mayor. Our drive to create mayoral combined authorities has been key to joining up transport, economic development, housing and planning in our largest city regions, and empowering areas to deliver their plans for sustainable economic growth. I was glad that my hon. Friend mentioned that comprehensively in his speech, as it is his vision too.

    The west midlands has an ambitious metro programme, and the Government have provided significant funding already. As part of the transforming cities fund, my Department agreed a settlement of £321.5 million for the west midlands. The region allocated £207 million of that funding to the extension of the metro, which is very important for the whole Black Country—it is an issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South has mentioned to me too. I recognise the importance of the project in enhancing transport connectivity in the constituencies of several of my hon. Friends and the wider region, and welcome the current plans to open the first phase of the scheme to passengers within the next couple of years.

    My Department is keen to work with Mayor Street to understand the funding challenges involved in this scheme, and to identify potential solutions. The Government’s funding support for the expansion of West Midlands Metro has not been limited to the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill scheme, but has included investment in a number of other key projects, and we will continue to work with the Mayor on those as well. West Midlands Combined Authority is currently exploring opportunities with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to make use of an in-year capital investment to fund strategically important projects, aligned with levelling up. The region’s metro extension programme is among the projects under consideration, and I understand that a funding decision is expected imminently. My hon. Friend should definitely contact my colleagues in that Department as well. I shall also seek the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South, the oracle of Brierley Hill, on this matter.

    I recognise the role that trams and metros play in our largest towns and cities, helping people to access jobs, education, healthcare and society more widely, which is why we supported our trams and metros throughout the pandemic, when the Government provided more than £250 million for the light rail system. That funding helped to keep services running and enabled key workers to get to work, and West Midlands Metro received over £13 million of it.

    England’s largest city regions, including the west midlands, are a key priority of levelling up and driving growth and productivity. Our ambition is for every region to have at least one globally competitive city at its heart. That is why we are investing £5.7 billion in transport networks through the city region sustainable transport settlements. We have agreed a five-year funding settlement from 2022, and I look forward to seeing all the transformational projects that it will bring about, particularly in the west midlands.

    More than £1 billion is going to the west midlands. My hon. Friend spoke about enhancements to the metro, but, as he also mentioned, this is not just about the metro, although the metro is a part of it. Schemes proposed in the region include an upgrade of the depot at Wednesbury, which I understand the Mayor visited earlier today, and the integrated hub at Dudley Port, which I know is vital to my hon. Friend.

    This investment programme represents the principal transport funding for eligible authorities to invest in their local priorities, and Mayors are responsible to their communities for delivering the agreed outcomes. We recognise that there will always be challenges, but I know that my hon. Friend will continue to work with me, and with local representatives, to address them. We in the Department are always willing to be flexible, while retaining—this was an important point made by my hon. Friend—the degree of transparency and oversight that must be maintained at all times to ensure that public money is always well spent.

    I agree that the extension of the metro is vital for the west midlands and my hon. Friend’s constituency. West Bromwich West could not have a more foot-slogging, hard-working, campaigning local Member of Parliament. He has addressed me regularly about these issues: he grabs me in the Tea Room, he corresponds with me by email and in person, and he collars me in the Division Lobbies. He really is batting for his constituency, and I wish him the very best of luck in getting more councillors of his ilk elected in Sandwell in the coming months.

    My Department has provided significant funds to support metro infrastructure in my hon. Friend’s region, and is committed to investing in wider improvements to its transport network over the coming years. I look forward to working with him to deliver for the people of Tipton, Wednesbury and beyond. There are acute transport needs there, and this is not a panacea, but it will be a big help. I want to go on working with West Midlands Combined Authority, and also holding its feet to the fire. With financial freedom comes financial responsibility: that important point was made by my hon. Friend.

    My door is always open to my hon. Friend if he ever wants to go on pressing the case for his region and his constituents. Transport and regeneration go hand in hand. I hope that we can get this major scheme—which is important to the region, but also to the wider country—over the line, working together: my hon. Friend and me, Mayor Street, the councillors of Dudley and Sandwell, and my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South and other Members across the region.

  • Shaun Bailey – 2023 Speech on the Midlands Metro Extension

    Shaun Bailey – 2023 Speech on the Midlands Metro Extension

    The speech made by Shaun Bailey, the Conservative MP for West Bromwich West, in the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

    It is a pleasure to bring this matter to the Floor of the House. I will start in perhaps a different way by paying tribute to the Minister on the Treasury Bench. He and I have known each other for some three years, since we were elected together. People often say in this place that it is not a meritocracy and that it is who you know that gets you where you are, but my hon. Friend is certainly one of those who works incredibly hard. I would say that he is probably one of the hardest working Ministers we have, so I just want to pay tribute to him in my opening remarks.

    Now I have buttered up the Minister, I will proceed to talk about what is a really important and vital infrastructure development for my communities in Tipton and Wednesbury and within the wider Black Country. The case for the metro is known, but I want to reiterate it. When we look at the return on spend, according to the 2017 review, for every £1 invested in the metro, we receive from £1.37 to £2.48 back into the local economy.

    The metro forms an important part of the broader development strategy for the Black Country, and the Black Country core strategy has identified allocated sites, such as the DY5 enterprise zone, and the possibility of developing high-quality housing as well as commercial floorspace over a 25-year period. It has also identified, as part of the Black Country garden city project and innovation zones, an opportunity for some 45,000 new houses over a 10-year period, with continued investment as a result of the metro. We need high-quality homes and housing, and the metro extension between Wednesbury and Brierley Hill—the part of the extension on which my comments will focus—has the potential to unlock and leverage some £6 billion of investment, particularly in high-quality homes and housing.

    The scheme is intrinsically linked to the Merry Hill masterplan to ensure that the Merry Hill site and the broader Brierley Hill area continue to be developed with some 3,000 homes and 300,000 square metres of commercial opportunities. That is all part of what was originally announced in the 2017 plan. We know that for the communities in Tipton and Wednesbury, and of course in Brierley Hill, which is represented in so sterling a way by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood), there is the potential, if we get this right, to unlock proper investment. My hon. Friend is a real champion for Brierley Hill—if anyone needs any information about it, they should speak to him, because he is the master of everything to do with Brierley Hill.

    There is also an infrastructure case, and I will talk about the comparisons with bus journey times from areas in my constituency to Bull Street, which is one of the main termini in Birmingham city centre for the metro. I will give the Minister some examples on the basis of the proposed tram stops. Currently, a bus from the proposed Great Bridge tram stop takes 66 minutes, but with the new metro extension it would take 29 minutes to make the equivalent journey. Equally, from Horseley Road, also in Tipton, and Dudley Port, 71 and 72 minutes have been cut to 31 and 33 minutes respectively.

    For public transport users, this is a vital project that will unlock our tourist attractions in the Black Country. Everyone knows about the fantastic Dudley zoo. Everyone from the west midlands has been to Dudley zoo, or the Black Country Living Museum, which has the best chips going. Its fish and chip shop is absolutely incredible, with chips fried in proper beef dripping. I honestly suggest that Members go along for our fantastic Black Country battered chips.

    Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)

    What about the fish?

    Shaun Bailey

    And fish as well, as my right hon. Friend points out.

    If we get this right, it will unlock a real opportunity to see the best of the Black Country and galvanise our communities. Whether people love it or loathe it, HS2 is a key part of the broader infrastructure journey for the west midlands. The metro extension from Wednesbury to Brierley Hill—should it be completed—will allow communities in the Black Country to access that infrastructure, with routes through to Curzon Street and on to the HS2 line. That means that my constituents in the Black Country and Sandwell, as well as those in Dudley, will have access to what is being billed as one of the key parts of our infrastructure journey—an infrastructure revolution, particularly for communities in the west midlands.

    We must also look at the jobs case, with a predicted 393 temporary construction jobs on site each year across the proposed construction period, an estimated total of between 2,000 and 5,000 new jobs, and an increase in gross value added of between £0.7 billion and £1.5 billion. Clearly that case has been made. It has been made powerfully and endorsed by the West Midlands Combined Authority, which is completely behind the project and understands its importance to the region.

    We must ensure that delivery happens, and I must highlight some concerns about that. The current Wednesbury to Brierley Hill track cost £41 million per kilometre to construct. The WMCA reported last year that the cost of the six to eight mile track has gone up from £448 million to £550 million, and we currently have a £290 million shortfall. Infrastructure costs money—we know that. There is a lot I could do with £448 million. I could have 20 lovely levelling-up funds, for example, in my towns. But we must ensure that when money like that is on the table, we see the delivery. There is so much contingent on this line of the metro coming online that we must ensure that it happens.

    There is frustration within my communities about the delays and the uncertainty around the extension. My community knows that this project is vital to unlock the untapped potential of the Black Country. I am a loyal member of my party, of course, but my loyalties are not to the combined authority, a Mayor, or anyone in particular; they are to the communities of the Black Country, and to Tipton and Wednesbury in particular. Those communities want this project to be done, but a critical analysis of where we are with it is really important. My constituents are paying for the delays to it through increased congestion on their roads and increased difficulty getting around—I will highlight that point in a bit more detail in a moment.

    I support the broader vision of this project, and when the Mayor of the West Midlands calls for investment zones on the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill line, I support that call 100%. He is absolutely right. The Mayor understands that although the metro extension is one part of that, there has to be secondary investment as well. There has to be an offering for people to use the line from Wednesbury to Brierley Hill, and to want to get on it, and that means vibrant local economies in areas along the line in Wednesbury, Tipton, Brierley Hill and Dudley.

    I pay tribute to the Conservative administration in Dudley, who have done a fantastic job over the years in banging the drum for that borough and securing investment into their towns. If we could replicate that in Sandwell, gosh only knows what we could do, but we have a bit of catching up to do. We finally have councillors on Sandwell Council, which is positive after years of not having any. The truth is that the potential of the extension is there to be unlocked, but delivery needs to happen.

    Turning to the broader need for investment in our infrastructure, the point I want to make to my hon. Friend the Minister is that while the metro is obviously a key part of our infrastructure journey in the Black Country—pardon the pun—I do not want him to forget the other key components. Some 70.4% of my constituents drive. I have been making quite a lot of noise—as he knows, because I keep collaring him about it—about an area in my constituency called Great Bridge and a roundabout we call Great Bridge island. There are some lovely lions on the island. It is congested to the point where, frankly, someone is going to get killed. It comes off the A41 expressway from West Bromwich from a dual carriageway to a single-track road, and then extends up to Horseley Heath and Burnt Tree. The carnage on that road at peak times is ridiculous. My office is based in Great Bridge and I live about a mile directly up the road. At peak time, that journey can take me 40 minutes because of the congestion on the roundabout.

    These may sound like parochial issues, but they are the issues that my community in Tipton care about. They cannot pick their kids up on time. They cannot get to work easily. We have many fantastic manufacturing exporting businesses, but this is starting to impact on how they get their goods out. It may sound like a parochial, get-a-petition-up local issue, but the broader economic impacts are there to be seen.

    I need to make this point, too: the metro extension will not eradicate congestion on the roads. Anyone who suggests that is not being up front. It will not do that and nor should it be sold like that, because that is not the point of the metro extension. It will not do that when there is such a large number of people in my constituency who use their cars. We need to ensure that alongside the metro, there is a real plan for our roads in the Black Country. The number of A roads in my constituency is significant and they are in areas one would not expect them to be in—for example, off residential areas and near schools. We therefore need to ensure that alongside the metro—running in tandem with it, or parallel to it—is an effective roads strategy and investment in the Black Country. My hon. Friend the Minister was in Wednesbury today. Unfortunately, I was unable to join him, but I know he will visit Great Bridge and the island at some point. He might even stand on the island, Mr Deputy Speaker—you never know what delights we may have for my hon. Friend. When he does come to Tipton, he will see for himself the impact.

    Alongside the metro extension, there are what I would call secondary investment needs—for example, the investment zone promised in the autumn, although I know we have not heard much about that. Whatever form that takes, it is really important that we have some sort of contingent secondary investment alongside the metro extension to Brierley Hill. I can think of some examples from the autumn: for example, the redevelopment of Wednesbury centre and the fight that continues to redevelop Tipton shopping centre. Many people in Tipton remember what Owen Street was like back in the day, when you could literally get anything you wanted. It is getting back to where it needs to be, but it needs a push, and hopefully the metro extension can do that. Great Bridge is a fantastic town and there is a fantastic high street in Tipton, but investment is needed to lift up the façade. Again, the metro will hopefully do that. Dudley Port and the Rattlechain and Coneygre road sites provide employment and jobs, leveraging our fantastic industrial infrastructure in the Black Country.

    We need to ensure that there is a long-term operational model for the metro. I will be honest that I have been disappointed in the metro over the past 12 months. We have had cracks on the fleet, proposed strikes and other issues. Of course—we have to be up front with ourselves—the metro is quite heavily subsidised by the Government. It is absolutely vital that Midland Metro Ltd, which runs the metro, ensures there is operational delivery that works. I have been comforted somewhat, particularly with the issues with cracks on the fleet, that it acts quickly, but that should not be happening multiple times.

    I also have to say that their engagement with me was somewhat lacking, until I had to have a bit of a moment, and then I finally got someone to talk to me. That is not good enough, and it trickles down from the combined authority too. It is vital that in our communities we are all joined up, and I find that sometimes with the project that is just not happening. We need to ensure that we have an operational model for the metro that works and focuses on offering a great service.

    I have polled my constituents about their thoughts on the metro, and there is real affection for it. They value the fantastic customer service they receive from operatives on the metro, such as the conductors and drivers. I met some fantastic individuals when I visited the midlands metro depot in Wednesbury in my constituency who are really passionate about serving the community.

    It is fantastic that Midland Metro employs roughly 80% of its staff from the Black Country, but if there is to be long-term sustainability moving forward, we must ensure that Midland Metro’s operational model works and is commercially viable. That is the only way. It requires all stakeholders to be brought in and to communicate with one another. As I say, it is vital that the combined authority and Transport for West Midlands understand that too, so that we can move away from a model that sees quite heavy subsidies to the metro.

    The broader point about transport infrastructure feeds quite well into the current dialogue around devolution. This is obviously a matter devolved to the West Midlands Combined Authority, and we have seen the advent of trailblazer devolution deals. Our Mayor has said much about the need for fiscal freedoms for combined authorities and the end of what he has termed the “begging bowl culture”. I actually agree with the Mayor on that. I think it is a sensible approach, but that perhaps there is a middle ground.

    There will always be projects, particularly infrastructure projects such as the metro extension, where a degree of bidding and Government support is still needed, because those are massive projects. The freedom to be a bit more agile is very important, particularly when it comes something like the metro extension. However, with fiscal freedom comes fiscal accountability. On the delivery of such projects, if fiscal freedom is going to come, the combined authority needs to accept that it is accountable when the delivery does not match.

    The truth is that the metro still offers a great opportunity, more so because the project itself is ingrained now into the regeneration story of the Black Country. It cannot stand alone though; we need to ensure that other investments are covered. I have harassed my hon. Friend the Minister about needing a roads plan for the Black Country. I fully appreciate that that is a devolved matter, but I also know that the Minister is doing fantastic work on our roads. He is the leading light in his Department on these issues. I can see him furiously agreeing with me.

    There needs to be a roads strategy for the people who use our roads and want to collect their kids from school or go to work and not spend 40 minutes trying to travel a mile. There needs to be an understanding as to how we can truly leverage this to maximise secondary investment. That means investment in our town centres. I appreciate that that is not in the Minister’s portfolio, but I think it is none the less pertinent to the debate.

    We absolutely need investment in areas such as Tipton and Wednesbury. That will ensure that once again there is a Black Country-wide strategy on this line and that we maximise the opportunities there. We also need an operational model that sees actual profits from the metro itself for long-term sustainability. That requires all stakeholders to come together. It requires the top of the chain to engage more effectively with stakeholders on this and to understand that we all have a role to play. We also have to scale our ambition and realise that the metro extension is by no means a panacea for the infrastructure challenges that we have in the Black Country today. We all know that.

    I appreciate that many of these matters are devolved and that my hon. Friend the Minister really just oversees delivery, but I want to make sure of a number of things. First, will he guarantee that he will come and see the real capital of the Black Country, namely Tipton, to ensure that he understands the need to press on devolved administrations the importance of having real sub-regional strategies? We build these combined authorities, which is great, but there are sub-regions within them that have their own acute needs. Will he ensure that, as we continue to devolve further power and give further funding and resource to this project, it is scrutinised effectively? And will he instil with his colleagues, particularly in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the need, where there are large infrastructure projects, to ensure that secondary investment runs parallel to them?

    As I said in my maiden speech what seems like a long time ago—I think it was actually this month three years ago—my communities in Tipton and Wednesbury spent 50 years being forgotten. I made them a promise that I would ensure that their voice was always heard in this place and that they were never forgotten again. The delivery of this project sends a message to those communities that they have not been forgotten, that they are a priority and that we realise, in this place and in the combined authority, that there is opportunity in the Black Country that can be unleashed. Delivery so far has been wanting. We have a chance, as does the combined authority, to ensure that we get through and deliver the project and that we unlock the potential of the beating heart of this country, the Black Country—as far as I am concerned, Mr Deputy Speaker, the best part of the United Kingdom.

  • ISSUE OF THE WEEK 3 : Barbara Castle and the Rail Network

    ISSUE OF THE WEEK 3 : Barbara Castle and the Rail Network

    This is the third in our ‘issue of the week’ series which are designed to collect information and resources together about specific matters of political debate. Although we are publishing a number of documents every week for each new issue, we will also continually add new resources to these pages to make them as comprehensive as possible over time. We also hope that students will find the topics useful as a starting point for research on matters of political interest.

    Some of the interviews below were conducted for UKPOL, but there are also several new speeches that we’ve added to the web-site by Barbara Castle and from other politicians and commentators from the era. Many thanks to the Urban Transport Group for their assistance with this project and also to the National Archives. We have been offered additional resources relating to Barbara Castle which we will add to the web-site in due course.

    Particular thanks also to Christian Wolmar, a railway historian who has written a number of books including The Subterranean Railway: How the London Underground was Built and How it Changed the City Forever,  Crossrail : The Whole Story and more recently, British Rail : A New History.

    INDEX

    Introduction

    Timeline

    Richard Beeching and the Cuts to the Railways

    Ernest Marples

    Tom Fraser

    Closures of Stations and Rail Lines By Year

    The Build-Up to a Transport Policy

    1968 Transport Act

    Was Barbara Castle an Effective Transport Minister?

    Further Reading

    “Barbara Castle was one of the most notorious or most effective transport ministers in history, depending on your view. She introduced the breathalyser, the 70 mph speed limit on motorways and car seatbelts, but also presided over 2,050 of Beeching cuts in a betrayal of Prime Minister’s Harold Wilson’s pledge to reverse them” – from the book On the Slow Train by Michael Williams

    INTRODUCTION

    Barbara Castle was a British politician who served as a Member of Parliament for over thirty years and held several high-profile cabinet positions in the Labour government of the 1960s and 1970s. She had been a trail blazer in many ways, she was the youngest female MP in the House of Commons in 1945 and only the fourth woman to hold a Cabinet position. She was a MP representing Blackburn between 1945 and 1979 and then was the MEP for Greater Manchester between 1979 and 1989. Following the election of the Labour Government in 1964 she was appointed as the Minister for Overseas Development, before a surprise move to become the Minister for Transport in December 1965.

    Castle followed on in the Transport Minister role from Conservative Ernest Marples, who had commissioned Beeching to write his report on the future of the rail network and her Labour predecessor Tom Fraser. Marples had a strong focus on roads, not least partly due to involvement in a road building company, whereas it has been said by politicians of the time and historians that Tom Fraser didn’t produce a clear direction for the railways. It was a challenging legacy for Castle who had to deliver on a new transport policy in line with the 1964 Labour Party manifesto.

    As Minister of Transport in the late 1960s, Castle oversaw the implementation of the Beeching cuts, a series of drastic reductions to the UK’s railway network that resulted in the closure of thousands of miles of railway lines and stations. The goal of the controversial Beeching cuts was to reduce losses on unprofitable lines and to shift investment to more profitable routes, however it also resulted in many rural communities and industrial areas losing their rail connections, and it also made it harder for people to travel for work and leisure. It was against the backdrop though of a railway network which grew in a fragmented way in the late nineteenth century, was used heavily during both war periods and under-invested in, leaving a bloated network which was losing substantial sums of money.

    Castle’s railway policy was met with some controversy and criticism at the time because it seemed to go against the promises made at the 1964 General Election to stop some of the major closures. However, defenders of her also note that there were external factors that needed to be considered, not least the rapid growth of car ownership. Barbara Castle wrote in 1984, when the Castle Diaries 1964-1970 were published, her comments on the background of what she faced. On the state of the network, Christian Wolmar said:

    “Some of what Beeching closed was inevitable. If you look at the maps there were little lines connecting villages and branches off branches, none of that was ever going to really be very useful in a motoring world”.

    Later on, Castle introduced major legislation, the 1968 Transport Act, which was wide in its scope but which did introduce the principle of subsidising some rail lines where there was a social need. She also looked at new ways of encouraging freight to be moved from road to rail and also introduced new passenger transport bodies to try and create more strategic public transport policies at a local and regional level. Opinions on Castle’s performance as Transport Minister are divided, some view her as a strong leader who modernised the country’s transportation system and made important changes to improve efficiency and profitability, while others see her policies as harmful to many communities and industries that relied on rail transport.

    TIMELINE

    14 October 1959 – Ernest Marples becomes Conservative Transport Minister

    27 March 1963 – First Beeching Report published (The Reshaping of British Railways)

    15 October 1964 – Labour win General Election and Labour Party manifesto

    16 October 1964 – Tom Fraser becomes Labour Transport Minister

    16 February 1965 – Second Beeching Report published (The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes)

    21 December 1965 – Barbara Castle’s diary entry on being asked to become new Transport Minister

    23 December 1965 – Barbara Castle becomes new Transport Minister

    31 March 1966 – Labour win General Election and Labour Party manifesto

    24 May 1966 – Barbara Castle’s diary entry following meeting with rail unions

    15 June 1966 – Barbara Castle’s statement on retaining routes for potential re-opening

    15 March 1967 – Barbara Castle’s statement in Commons on the Railway Network Map

    6 November 1967 – Barbara Castle’s speech in Commons on Government’s Transport Policy

    20 December 1967 – Barbara Castle’s statement in Commons on the Transport Bill

    6 April 1968 – Richard Marsh replaces Barbara Castle as Transport Minister

    25 October 1968 – Transport Act passed (Text of railway section of 1968 Transport Act)

    RICHARD BEECHING AND THE CUTS TO THE RAILWAYS

    Richard Beeching, Baron Beeching, was a British engineer and businessman who served as the chairman of British Railways from 1961 to 1965. During his tenure, he oversaw the creation of a plan which led to a major restructuring of the rail network, which included the closure of thousands of miles of railway lines and stations, known as the “Beeching cuts”. Although some blame Beeching for savaging the rail network, historians often have a more nuanced view that he was tasked with a specific objective by Ernest Marples and many of his recommendations proved to be useful for the modernisation of the rail industry.

    The goal of the Beeching cuts was to reduce losses on unprofitable lines and to shift investment to more profitable routes. Beeching’s report, “The Reshaping of British Railways”, which was published in 1963, identified over 5,000 miles of railway lines and over 2,300 stations as uneconomic, and recommended their closure. As a result, many rural communities and industrial areas lost their rail connections, and it made it harder for people to travel for work and leisure.

    It’s also useful to note that Beeching wasn’t the first to suggest cuts, they had already been taking place, it was just that his report laid out with clarity what the future held for specific lines and the network as a whole. HP White writes in Forgotten Railways that:

    “In 1963 came the British Railways Board’s publication ‘The Reshaping of British Railways’, which will also be known as the ‘Beeching Report’. It is rightly regarded as a landmark in the story of rail closures, but probably for the wrong reason. It is not generally realised that while the Beeching Report recommended the closure of some 5,000 route miles of passenger services, it did not initiate the closure programme. Between 1950 and 1962, 4,236 route miles had already been closed. What was important was that, for the first time, the approach was a planned one”.

    He adds:

    “As a result of the association of his name solely with closures, Beeching has been seen as having a purely negative approach to his brief. But in a message to BR employees in July 1962 he expressed the hope that, having talked hitherto largely about cuts, he would soon be able to talk of growth. That he was denied the opportunity was due less to his own inclinations than to Government policies – or rather lack of them”.

    The Beeching cuts were mostly implemented by the Labour government of the time, led by Harold Wilson, and were initially supported by Tom Fraser and at first Barbara Castle, the Ministers of Transport. The cuts were met with significant controversy and criticism, as they were seen as detrimental to many communities and industries that relied on rail transport. But, with Castle reluctant to push forward the second Beeching report, it was evident that a change was coming.

    Beeching’s report and the railway cuts have had a long-lasting impact on the British railway system and many people still regard the size of the cuts as a major mistake and a missed opportunity to modernise the rail network. Over recent decades there has been a political move towards what is called “Reversing Beeching” and reopening lines and services. The House of Lords have produced a library briefing discussing these potential efforts to reopen lines, with this research document also linking to a speech on this web-site by Andrew Adonis which was made to the IPPR on this subject.

    ERNEST MARPLES

    Ernest Marples was a British businessman and politician who served as the Minister of Transport from 1959 to 1964. He played a key role in the restructuring of the UK’s rail network during this period. One of Marples’s most significant actions as Minister of Transport was the introduction of the “Beeching Plan” which proposed the closure of thousands of miles of railway lines and stations in order to reduce losses on unprofitable routes. The plan was named after the chairman of British Railways, Dr. Richard Beeching, who was appointed by Marples.

    The “Beeching Plan” was implemented by the Labour government that succeeded Marples’ and led to the closure of more than half of the UK’s railway stations and a third of its railway lines, causing significant controversy and criticism, particularly in the regions that lost their rail connections. To this day, Marples is known by many as one of the villains in railway history, as although some cutbacks to the number of lines and stations were inevitable where usage was particularly low, the fully implemented proposals would have devastated the network.

    Marples is also known for his involvement in the construction of the M1 motorway, the first of its kind in the UK, which was completed during his tenure as Minister of Transport. The road construction was also controversial given the personal interests that Marples had. Joe Moran writes in ‘On Roads – A Hidden History’ that:

    “Already, though, the flyovers were losing some of their lustre as they became embroiled in political wrangling. Ernest Marples remained a major shareholder in Marples Ridgway, the company he co-founded in 1948 which was involved in much of the early motorway building. When this company won the Hammersmith Flyover contract in 1960, the press challenged him over the conflict of interest. In a nod to the ancient road running along the chalk escarpment from the Dorset coast to the Norfolk Wash, this flyover became popularly known as the Maples Ridgeway. Marples was forced to divest himself of his shares – although probably not, as some history books have alleged, by selling them to Mrs. Marples. One MP asked the minister whether he would see to it that ‘before the opening ceremony the huge Marples nameplates which are scattered all over it, are removed in order that people can see the flyover?’”.

    In terms of legacy, Marples’ tenure as transport minister is viewed in a negative light by many due to the severe impact of the Beeching cuts on many communities and industries that relied on rail transport. His promotion of road infrastructure over rail also had a long-term impact on the UK’s transportation system and the environment. However, at the time there were those who supported his plans, including journalist Douglas Haig who wrote in December 1965 that he was the best of the recent Transport Ministers.

    TOM FRASER

    Tom Fraser was Labour’s Minister of Transport between October 1964 and December 1965, responsible for implementing the transport policy laid out in the 1964 Labour Party manifesto which said:

    “Nowhere is planning more urgently needed than in our transport system. The tragedy of lives lost and maimed; growing discomfort and delays in the journey to work; the summer weekend paralysis on our national highways; the chaos and loss of amenity in our towns and cities – these are only some of the unsolved problems of the new motor age. Far from easing these problems, the Government’s policy of breaking up road and rail freight co-ordination, of denationalising road haulage and finally of axing rail services under the Beeching Plan, have made things worse.

    Labour will draw up a national plan for transport covering the national networks of road, rail and canal communications, properly co-ordinated with air, coastal shipping and port services. The new regional authorities will be asked to draw up transport plans for their own areas. While these are being prepared, major rail closures will be halted.

    British Road Services, will be given all necessary powers to extend their fleet of road vehicles and to develop a first-rate national freight service. Reform of the road goods licensing system must now await the report of the Geddes Committee but, in the interests of road safety, we shall act vigorously to stop cut-throat haulage firms from flouting regulations covering vehicle maintenance, loads and driving hours.

    Labour believes that public transport, road and rail, must play the dominant part in the journey to work. Every effort will be made to improve and modernise these services. Urgent attention will be given to the proposals in the Buchanan Report and to the development of new roads capable of diverting through traffic from town centres. Labour will ensure that public transport is able to provide a reasonable service for those who live in rural areas. The studies already mentioned will decide whether these should be provided by public road or rail services”.

    The Government had come into power saying that it would review the Beeching cuts and look to form a new policy on how to tackle the losses in the rail industry, halting any major rail closures. Fraser was in the role for just over a year and he had ultimately decided that the general thrust of Beeching seemed correct, a view which had taken hold within the Transport Department. Despite the manifesto, he continued the closures policy, although he decided in June 1965 not to renew Beeching’s contract when his second report soon proved to be too politically difficult for the Government.

    One of Fraser’s most controversial decisions was the closure of the Varsity Line between Oxford and Cambridge even though this hadn’t even been listed by Beeching as track which should be shut. Over recent years, work has begun on plans to reopen the line to improve east-west rail links. Charles Loft wrote in ‘Government, the Railways and the Modernization of Britain’:

    “Fraser was unable to take decisions and was unduly reliant on his officials, his downfall was precipitated by his commitment to a planned transport policy. Even if such a policy could have been devised so as to justify a halt to the closure programme, it could not have been done quickly enough to satisfy important sections of Labour Party support; and without a new policy the advice that Fraser received on individual closure proposals was unlikely to differ from what Marples had received. Transport planning, it turned out, was at odds with the maintenance of an aura of dynamic change. It was in this respect that Fraser clearly failed to deliver and in which, on the face of it, things were to change with the arrival at the Ministry of Barbara Castle”.

    David Henshaw wrote in this book ‘In The Great Railway Conspiracy’ focusing on the closure of the Varsity Line:

    “In July 1965, the hapless Fraser – poorly briefed and seemingly disinterested – consented to closure [of the Varsity Line]. During this unhappy period, with lines being put forward [for closure] and processed at a rate of ten a month, this crucial link fell with hardly any national debate, as did others that were soon regretted. Implementation proved difficult, because there was trouble arranging bus services on a local basis, but the greater part of the line closed to passengers in November 1967, with the western end remaining open for freight, and a short section between Bedford and Bletchley for passenger trains. These remaining tenuous threads were to be of priceless value 30 years later, when action was finally taken to begin the long and complex task of reinstating the line”.

    He continues:

    “By the end of 1965, with the greater part of the Reshaping proposals now processed, there were few realistic candidates left for closure. Why then, did the Labour Government continue the process? According to Roger Calvert of the National Council for Inland Transport, the new and inexperienced administration had been bullied into submission by the powerful anti-rail civil servants at the Ministry of Transport, who were in turn being harassed by the Treasury over the railway’s growing deficit. Labour had, technically, arrived in power with a brief to integrate transport, but the railways were making big losses and Tom Fraser was getting top level advice that further closures were the way forward. In the end, there was no other game in town. He certainly seems to have had little interest in the transport job, and was understandably considered by the rail lobby to be openly road-biased”.

    Many of Fraser’s most notable decisions are in relation to the road network, as he introduced the 70mph speed limit, initially as a trial. His year in office was otherwise unremarkable, with many policies from the Conservative Government not being widely changed. This was the challenging backdrop of what Barbara Castle took over when she became Transport Minister, a need to try and create a new transport policy rather than just a continuation of what the Conservatives had been doing. Fraser was widely seen by politicians of the time and railway historians to have struggled with the role, hence why Wilson caused some initial shock, not least to her, by bringing Barbara Castle in to develop a new strategy.

    CLOSURES OF STATIONS AND RAIL LINES BY YEAR

    Railway line closures by year:

    1963 : 324 miles (521 km) [Conservative, Ernest Marples]
    1964 : 1,058 miles (1,703 km) [mostly Conservative, Ernest Marples]
    1965 : 600 miles (970 km) [Labour, Tom Fraser]
    1966 : 750 miles (1,210 km) [Labour, Barbara Castle]
    1967 : 300 miles (480 km) [Labour, Barbara Castle]
    1968 : 400 miles (640 km) [Labour, Barbara Castle and Richard Marsh]
    1969 : 250 miles (400 km) [Labour, Richard Marsh and Fred Mulley]

    Details of closed railway stations can be found at http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/.

    THE BUILD-UP TO A TRANSPORT POLICY

    Harold Wilson had given Barbara Castle the role of Transport Minister as Tom Fraser had struggled in the job and the Prime Minister wanted it to become a priority for the Labour Government. She faced challenges immediately, Fraser had effectively continued many policies from Ernest Marples and she needed to come up with an integrated transport policy which had been promised in the 1964 Labour party manifesto.

    TR Gourvish noted in his book ‘British Railways 1948-1973’ the scale of the administrative problems that she faced:

    “The Ministry, like the railways themselves, required improved planning mechanisms and a better co-ordination of departments. Castle was apparently shocked to find that she had been posted to ‘a huge, sprawling jungle’ of 7,000 civil servants, patently in need of major departmental reform”.

    Philip S Bagwell similarly noted in The Transport Crisis in Britain that “the overwhelming majority of the staff in the Ministry were concerned with road transport”. A few weeks into her new role, in February 1966, Barbara Castle stated her thoughts to how she would develop the Government’s transport policy. She said that:

    “The time has come for a radical new railway policy. We had to decide its shape and size, taking into account national and regional plans as well as social needs and also how we should pay for it, so identifying costs which should be borne by the community, giving realistic efficiency targets to British Railways and taking from them the slur of a deficit.

    The first requirement was to regard our railways as a valuable national asset, as the French did, and to concentrate on improving them. Labour had never denied that some pruning must be done, but there was no need to go to the other extreme and write off any part of it which didn’t fit in with the ‘superficially defined criteria of profitability’ without making any effort to see whether, by imaginative adjustments, the lines could be made more remunerative”.

    Lisa Martineau wrote in her biography of Barbara Castle that car usage was growing and that there were limits to what she could do as Transport Minister, noting:

    “Democratising car ownership would mean building new roads and spending more on existing ones, of course; but 90% of passenger traffic and 60% of freight was carried on the roads, and Barbara accepted that you would not get people out of their cars and ‘onto railways which could not take them where they wanted to go’. An accommodation with the car had to be found: ring roads, restrictions on cars in the centres of towns and cities, and subsidised public transport were obvious beginnings”.

    There were hints at the excitement of road building for Barbara Castle, when she noted in 1966 at the construction of the Almondsbury interchange that “these are the cathedrals of the modern world”. TR Gourvish comments in his book ‘British Railways 1948-1973’ that after getting to grips with the role, Castle wanted to redefine the Government’s policy:

    “When Castle took office, the Board was about to embark on the second stage of its passenger rationalisation programme, a systematic evaluation of all its passenger services in order to weed out those which were ‘suspect in the sense that earnings do not cover direct costs’. But this initiative was put to one side with the change of direction in 1966, which involved the identification of a larger, 11,000-mile network for development and a group of passenger services which would qualify for government subsidy. Castle was certainly expected to be more hostile to closures, particularly by those on the Labour backbenches and in the rail unions who had attacked Tom Fraser for perpetuating the Beeching-Marples approach. One of the myths of railway history is that the new Minister, by championing the cause of the commuter and rural rail user, finally nailed the lid on the Reshaping coffin”.

    The closures of railway lines kept coming, with Castle justifying many closures by saying that the cuts were less than Beeching had intended. She did save some lines from closure, but there were others cases such as the railway line from Buxton to Matlock which she authorised the closure of, even though it hadn’t been on the list proposed by Beeching. The debate on the future of the railways continued with the work towards legislation planned for 1968.

    Work was beginning on a new model for public transport, including what became regional passenger transport executives who could co-ordinate and organise at a regional level. In a parliamentary debate, prior to the passing of the Transport Act, in November 1967, the Shadow Transport Minister Peter Walker said:

    “I turn to the proposals for passenger transport authorities. These proposals have no friends. Local authorities do not like them; industry does not like them, and the bus industry in particular does not like them. Everybody is opposed to them”.

    Castle said in response:

    “The 1962 Act set up the railways as a separate entity, encouraged them to compete with other forms of nationalised transport and then left the profit and loss account as the sole criterion of success and did not even provide conditions in which the profit and loss account could be balanced”.

    Walker had said in his speech that Barbara Castle’s plans involved substantial nationalisation, but the proposals were more nuanced than that. They were an attempt to deliver an integrated transport policy, recognising that roads were now the future of transport for many, but also ensuring that bus and rail services would continue to be an option. Castle would have by nature of her political instincts been in support of more nationalisation as she was on the left of the party and had at other times argued for this approach, but she wanted in transport to be a partnership of public and private.

    There was another challenge evident with Barbara Castle’s diary entry following meeting with rail unions which was that it was necessary to keep the workers and the trade unions on side. This proved to be a real challenge, although the rail unions did recognise that things could have been much worse given the backing that Castle was trying to give to the network. Christian Wolmar said that “even today, the unions are strong enough to suddenly make a lot of trouble and part of the problem that the Government has now found itself in is because they haven’t talked properly to the unions”. He added that “Castle realised the importance of winning the unions over and devoted a lot of time to it”.

    Castle had by this time “become a media hate figure” according to Joe Moran in ‘On Roads – A Hidden History’, but much of this wasn’t with relation to railway policies, but instead because of her policies with regards to roads. She had introduced the breathalyser, she had effectively made permanent the 70mph road ban introduced by Tom Fraser and introduced compulsory seatbelts in new cars. There were protests about the motorway speed limit by many who felt they should be able to do what they liked in their car on the new motorways and didn’t appreciate being told what to do by a Government Minister.

    One controversial decision that Barbara Castle took was the dismissal of railway manager Gerry Fiennes, who had saved the East Suffolk line from closure by cutting costs locally and showing that the line could save money by competent management. He went public with an announcement that lines could be saved, but Castle thought that his book ‘I Tried to Run a Railway’ went too far. David Webster, the Shadow Transport Minister for the Conservatives condemned the dismissal and demanded an inquiry into the decision.

    Barbara Castle’s preparatory work in 1966 and 1967 was building up to one of the most substantial pieces of legislation that had been seen since the war, what became the 1968 Transport Act.

    1968 TRANSPORT ACT

    The text of 1968 Transport Act at legislation.gov.uk and the book ‘The British Railways System’ by Roger Spear et al is a useful detailed guide written for Open University students as to the structure of the railways at the time and the challenges which Ministers faced.

    The Transport Act 1968 was a major piece of legislation passed by the UK government that aimed to modernise and reorganise the country’s transportation system. The main architect of the act was Barbara Castle who wanted to not only deliver on the party’s 1964 manifesto but also to have clarity on the future of transport.

    The act was substantial in its scope and size, the largest since the Second World War. It aimed to achieve numerous objectives such as delivering a more integrated public transport system by the creation of PTEs and it created the National Freight Corporation (previously known as British Road Services), with the goal of improving the efficiency and profitability of the country’s freight operations.

    The Act also allowed for the establishment and development of liner trains, which evolved into Freightliner, which allowed containers to be transported by rail in an attempt to stop some of the move towards transporting goods by road. Despite progress actually being made, Barbara Castle wrote in her diaries that some of her proposals weren’t progressed, noting her successor:

    “Dick Marsh never brought them into operation because he did not approve of them, so the experiment in shifting goods from road to rail was never made”.

    The Act gave local authorities more powers to plan and provide public transport services, and it established the National Bus Company, which aimed to improve the efficiency and profitability of the country’s bus operations. The creation of PTEs, or Passenger Transport Executives, allowed areas (usually urban) to take control of bus routes in their region as well as working with the rail industry. There had until this point been a general policy to tackle urban transport problems by building new ringroads and flyovers in cities, leading to residential areas being demolished and causing environmental issues.

    Significantly, the Transport Act also included provisions for the closure of uneconomic railway lines and stations, with subsidies available for lines which fulfilled a social good for the community. HP White writes in Forgotten Railways that “until at least 1963 subsidy had been a dirty word for all political parties” and so Castle’s subsidy was “a very significant policy change”. Richard Pryke and John Dodgson note in their book The British Rail Problem : A Case Study in Economic Disaster:

    “Barbara Castle wanted to eliminate open-ended subsidies and impose some financial discipline on the Railways Board. The solution adopted was to identify those passenger services that were losing money and to cover their estimated deficits through a subsidy. It was hoped and expected that the Board would then be able to break even provided its capital charges were scaled down, and if it were relieved of responsibility for the highly unprofitable freight sundries service”.

    They add that:

    “The Transport Act of 1968 has failed in its objective: British Rail is once again heavily in deficit, despite the financial reconstruction and the receipt of a large subsidy. In 1969, the railways and their ancillary activities had a net profit of around £20 million, after taking into account the £76 million which they received from the Government. However, by 1971 they were once again in deficit, and in 1973 they sustained a net loss approaching £50 million, despite £94 million of subsidies”.

    Lisa Martineau wrote in her biography of Barbara Castle just how sizeable and revolutionary the legislation was:

    “Barbara’s labyrinthine Transport Bill was the longest non-financial Bill in parliamentary history and the longest Bill or any sort since the war. The experts and the media, for the most part, were impressed. She had, said the New Statesman, set out ‘to reform practically the whole of the internal transport system …. by a nice blend of traditional socialism and up to date technocratic intervention’. The Bill was often called a pantechnicon – a bazaar and a receptacle containing many miscellaneous objects, as well as a removal lorry – it was ‘stuffed with all the radical proposals for reorganising British transport that have been maturing under that neat crop of fiery hair for the past eighteenth months’ wrote The Times”.

    Some were disappointed by the Act in terms of how the road lobby still seemed to be winning the arguments over the future of transport, with David Henshaw writing in the Great Railway Conspiracy:

    “The 1968 Act proved a serious disappointment. The Government lost its nerve in the face of concerted opposition from the road lobby and eased the lorry taxation proposals. And the unremunerated railway grants system actually precipitated a fresh round of closures, because there was a cap on the total grant aid, and the level of grant for individual lines proved too generous, leading the Government to refuse aid in many cases. By 1970, the implementation of Dr Beeching’s Reshaping report was more or less complete, but with railway income falling, overall financial viability remained as far out of reach as ever”.

    Richard Pryke and John Dodgson note in their book ‘The British Rail Problem : A Case Study in Economic Disaster’ that:

    “The moral which the Railways Board appears to have drawn from the Transport Act was not, as the Government intended, that British Rail must do its utmost to cut its costs and trim its investment, but that, if the need arose, more assistance would be forthcoming”.

    Overall, the Transport Act 1968 and Barbara Castle’s efforts aimed to modernise and reorganise the country’s transportation system and to reduce losses on unprofitable lines, however it also resulted in significant controversy and criticism for the negative impact it had on many communities.

    WAS BARBARA CASTLE AN EFFECTIVE TRANSPORT MINISTER?

    Barbara Castle’s period as Transport Minister was one of the most remarkable of anyone who held the role, as there was an ambitious new policy position put together for the future of rail and road. The 1968 Transport Act was in many ways revolutionary in terms of public transport integration, subsidising rail lines and also developing freight services by rail.

    However, for those who believe the rail sector was badly damaged following Beeching, they will point to how many stations and miles of railway lines closed during her period in office. Castle, herself not a car driver, was always sympathetic to the needs of those without their own car, but she faced the challenge of a society where car ownership was becoming more common and there seemed to be a shift away from public transport. She once said:

    “I refused to be a King Canute trying to force people onto railways which could not take them where they wanted to go”.

    Christian Wolmar said that “she didn’t quite understand the impact that cars would have, like everyone else at the time” with not just politicians of the time, but also the Transport Ministry in the 1960s being very much in favour of a car focused future. Wolmar adds though that “it was a breakthrough” that Castle introduced the process of subsidising some rail lines where there were social benefits to doing so, adding that “many politicians today still don’t understand that and they talk about railways paying their way”.

    During the initial part of her period in the role, she did though continue the closure programme and she also extended it, closing lines such as Buxton to Matlock which hadn’t been part of the Beeching plan. Although Castle did approve the closures of thousands of miles of rail line, she did ensure that some routes were saved, including York to Harrogate, Manchester to Buxton and the Exeter to Exmouth line.

    Outside of the rail network, Castle was also known for other innovations, such as the introduction of the breathalyser which helped to tackle the shock figure in 1966 that 8,000 people had died on the roads. She also was also responsible for requiring seatbelts to be fitted into new cars and extending the 70mph limit on motorways so that it effectively became permanent. In addition to this, she enabled 1,400 miles of the British canal network to be saved in a substantial part for leisure use, despite objections from HM Treasury that it wasn’t commercially viable.

    Alfred F Havighurst noted in his 1985 book ‘Britain in Transition – The Twentieth Century’:

    “Barbara Castle’s notable Transport Act of 1968 reflected courage and intelligence in dealing with financial deficits and inefficiency in the railway and road haulage. For the nationalised railways this legislation wiped out financial losses which had piled up from the past, transferred unremunerative traffic to road haulage, and provided compensation for services which were still socially desirable though unremunerative. The goal for British Railways was operation without deficits by 1974. Also, the Transport Act completely transformed road haulage in the endeavour to make maximum use of railways in handling freight previously carried on congested highways, to eliminate competition between the railways and road haulage, and, in general to render road haulage safer, more efficient, and more economical”.

    Charles Loft wrote in ‘Government, the Railways and the Modernization of Britain’:

    “Castle’s reputation as an innovative minister of transport who restored a measure of coordination to transport policy and gave rail a better deal rests primarily on a series of measures contained in the 1968 Transport Act. Although she refused to recreate the BTC, the Act’s provision for Passenger Transport Authorities to coordinate transport in urban areas and its creation of a National Freight Corporation (NFC) to control the former British Road Services, the BRB’s collection and delivery services and various rail freight services, including freightliners, largely satisfied Labour’s desire for coordination. Its provision of subsidies for loss-making rail services and a ‘quantity licensing’ system for road haulage, designed to divert freight from road to rail, combined with her commitment to an 11,000 mile network, rather than the 8,000 implied by the final round of Beeching’s traffic studies, given even a critic such as Henshaw the impression that she successfully challenged the pro-road bias of the Ministry and its Permanent Secretary Sir Thomas Padmore, an impression which owes much to the weight of opposition brought to bear on quantity licensing by the RHA and the Conservatives”.

    David Henshaw wrote in this book ‘In The Great Railway Conspiracy’ about the legacy of Barbara Castle:

    “Castle has had a mixed press over the years. After the cheerfully road-biased Marples, and ineffective Fraser, she entered the Ministry like a breath of fresh air, standing up to the powerful civil servants and making a serious attempt to find a fair solution to the railway issue. On the other hand, she oversaw some disastrous closures that should never have been allowed. Unlike previous incumbents, her transport politics were hard to place. She rarely used railways, but needed a chauffeur because she couldn’t drive, and apparently had no desire to”.

    The individual reader can make up their own mind as to whether or not Barbara Castle was a successful Minister, but she was perhaps unarguably productive and industrious in developing policy directions. Much of what an individual might make of Barbara Castle likely depends on whether they feel she did enough to stop the rail closures that took place in the 1960s or whether her new policy of subsidising unprofitable lines actually meant an end to the closures at least from the 1970s onwards. Looking back though at transport policy in the twentieth century, it would be hard not to look at the 1968 Transport Act as being a revolutionary piece of legislation which contained some radical and innovative new visions for the future.

    Jonathan Bray addressed this question and concluded:

    “So, 50 years on, what is the legacy and the relevance? You can argue long and hard over whether she was in the end too radical or too pragmatic – or whether the positives are outweighed by the scars that haven’t healed from the lines that closed on her watch (and she would have loved to have the argument with you!). But you can’t fault her for ambition, determination and brio. She showed that you need to go out there and sell radical change (she always had her press people in for the key decisions and led from the front on making the case)”.

    FURTHER READING

    The Transport Crisis in Britain by Philip S Bagwell

    Fighting All the Way by Barbara Castle

    The Castle Diaries 1964 – 1970 by Barbara Castle

    I Tried to Run a Railway by Gerry Fiennes

    British Railways 1948-1973 by TR Gourvish

    The Great Railway Conspiracy by David Henshaw

    Little Book of Beeching by Robin Jones

    Politics & Power – A Biography of Barbara Castle by Lisa Martineau

    On Roads – A Hidden History by Joe Moran

    The British Rail Problem : A Case Study in Economic Disaster by Richard Pryke and John Dodgson

    Forgotten Railways by HP White

    On the Slow Train by Michael Williams

    British Rail : A New History by Christian Wolmar

    EXTERNAL LINKS

    Barbara Castle’s Archive at the Bodleian Library

    Barbara Castle’s Cabinet Diaries at the University of Bradford

    Article by Jonathan Bray – “The best transport secretary we’ve had?”

    Christian Wolmar

    National Archives

  • Barbara Castle – 1965 Diary Entry on Becoming Transport Secretary

    Barbara Castle – 1965 Diary Entry on Becoming Transport Secretary

    The diary entry on 21 December 1965 in Barbara Castle’s diaries, The Castle Diaries 1964-1970.

    TUESDAY 21 DECEMBER 1965

    At 8.45 pm phone call from Marcia [Williams]. Could I come down and see the PM? Harold [Wilson] waved me into his room, boyish and slightly dishevelled. “May I open my heart to you? You and I ought to talk more, only I’m so busy and you are, too. Have a whisky or brandy?”. When I said that I’d love a brandy, he said, “it’s the only thing that keeps me going. Fortunately I have a most intelligent doctor who prescribes it for me. It does something to my metabolism”.

    ……

    “I always knew that Tom [Fraser] was weak, but I was saddled with a shadow Cabinet, every one of whom expected a job” he went on, “I must have a Minister of Transport who can act. Tom has got a very strong Permanent Secretary whom Churchill got rid of in the Cabinet secretariat and brought in Burke Trend (though I’ll get rid of Helsby before I’m through). I am convinced he has killed integration. But we have got to have an integrated transport policy. I can’t hold the Party otherwise. And the Party is key to everything. We have offered Tom all sorts of advisers but he doesn’t know how to make use of them. Unless you accept my offer the reshuffle can’t take place. I hope you will, but, Barbara, if you say no I shan’t hold it against you. I know what you feel about Overseas Development, but I want you on the home side. I think you are the best person we have got. I want you to be Minister of Transport”.

    I closed my eyes.