Apart from a consultation paper on new rail franchising arrangements, and a few ringfenced pledges such as on the Tyne and Wear Metro, there is as lack of clarity on vital capital investment projects such as electrification programmes, including on the Great Western Line, new rolling stock investment that will guarantee jobs in the north-east, public investment for Crossrail, and any coherent alternative route for north-south high speed rail. On October 20, the delays must stop.
Following the budget, the prime minister told Conservative supporters in an email that, by the budget, people would have the measure of this government. Similarly, by our response to the comprehensive spending review in October, the country will have the measure of Labour in opposition. We must be clear and credible. We must show that there is another way. In Sweden in the 1990s, fiscal consolidation on a similar scale to that pursued by the Tories and Liberals saw capital investment slashed, and transport investment halved. This must not be Labour’s way.
In the wake of concerns expressed by the OECD this week about a possible downturn in growth in the second half of 2010, it would be folly to slash productive investment that generates jobs, promotes green industries of the future, and creates new transport capacity. Recent research shows transport plays a central role in driving economic growth whilst providing, at the same time, greater social equity. To close the productivity gap with our EU partners, we need to bring our major towns and cities closer together through more efficient transport links by road, and rail. This is why the Labour government increased its spending on transport by 300 per cent between 1999 and 2009. As a result, while Labour was in government, the gap with our fellow European countries in transport spending per capita was reduced markedly.
Research by Eddington has estimated that a total of 13 per cent of travel will be on highly congested roads by 2025, thereby rapidly increasing the costs of business to £12 billion per year due to heavy traffic. If the Tories cancel or postpone programmes for additional road capacity, more congestion will inevitably be created.
On airport capacity in the UK, we need a fully informed debate now if our major airports are not to lose competitiveness in ten years’ time. We need to do the hard work in opposition on the economic, and environmental arguments about where the additional capacity is required at Britain’s airports, whether in the regions or nations, or in the south-east and London.
Britain cannot sit back while the Tories dither and delay on north-south high speed rail. In the UK, we have 85 miles of high speed lines. In France and Germany, it is nearer 3,500 miles. We know that for every £1 invested in high speed rail, we get £2 back in environmental and economic benefits. Linking our major industrial centres brings people and businesses together, draws in extra tourism, and reduces the north-south divide. Due to the government’s regressive spending cuts and its inability to commit to the original north-south high speed route, nor its connectivity with Crossrail, the timetable for the building and completion of north-south high speed rail is likely to be further delayed.
The prime minister pledged to lead ‘the greenest government ever.’ But on the Green Investment Bank, the black hole masquerading as certainty on funding puts thousands of new jobs at stake. Similarly, the coalition has decided to reduce the subsidies promised by Labour for the uptake of electric cars from £230 million to £43 million, and cutting the number of grants for subsidising electric powered vehicles to a mere 8,600. Moreover, it has failed to guarantee funding beyond 2012, and has given no guarantee on the national plug-in charging network that Labour would create. £60 million investment in British ports is critical in providing the infrastructure necessary to deliver the heavy duty wind turbines, without which the expected creation of green jobs would be lost. It would be short-termism of the worst sort if the Tories cut or delay these port improvements now.
In opposition, the transport secretary said he would be part of a government that delivered more for less. If the reverse becomes the reality on October 20, he will be exposed as a soft touch for the chancellor, and an abject failure to millions of commuters, businesses, and motorists across the country.
You state an apparent need for “public investment for Crossrail” in your very contradictory package about ‘transport’. Do you do so because you believe in irrationality and financial irresponsibility? What is Crossrail? It is a fantasy. It is not a going entity. So why refer to it as if it is a going entity doing highly needed job in the economy? You can’t on the one hand blame the CONDEM for lacking vision and on the other put forward as vision that turns out to be fantasy. Ever since the secret cabal began to pressurise Tony Blair in June 2003 over Crossrail, ALL they have produced by way of evidence ‘supporting their call for public funding of Crossrail’ has been hype, hype and more hype. No evidence. When the UK Department for Transport [= DfT] and the then Finance Minister G Brown asked Rod Eddington to investigate the future of Railway transport in the UK, they had not expected Eddington to reject the hype for Crossrail. The USA Business publisher Forbes admitted as much. They were later followed by Britain’s own Channel 4 News which confirmed in express terms on 5 October 2007 that G Brown was giving the Government’s financial backing to Crossrail AGAINST THE ADVICE of Eddington. On the eve of Eddington’s publishing his findings almost two years previously on 01 December 2006] the Guardian newspaper had decided to condemn Eddington for his clear refusal to endorse the over hyped Crossrail [as the Guardian had found out courtesy of the DfT that had released a nominally embargoed copy of the report to the Guardian and other state-accredited media]. In the FOUR years that have elapsed since the Guardian’s touting job for Big Business interests pushing for Crossrail, the media group has failed to publish one single data, one single objective calculation let alone detailed cost benefit analysis let alone – NOT TO SPEAK of – objectively assessed demand in the ordinary economy showing even an ordinary demand in the UK ECONOMY for Crossrail. So what is so progressive about your retailing a fakery? How can that kind of propaganda take you any nearer to connection with the ordinary public?