The ConservativeHome Future of Transport Conference – featuring the Transport Secretary, government ministers, local and national politicians, and industry leaders – will discuss the future of transport, from sustainability to space; the role for transport in levelling up; and the work the government is doing to invest in transport and keep Britain moving.
Splendid thank you um hello uh ladies and gentlemen and Welcome to our second panel at today’s conservative home future of Transport conference my name is William Atkinson I’m the assistant editor um here at conservative home and today we’re going to be um sorry today we’re going to be
Focusing on the theme of connecting opportunity the role of Transport in leveling up leveling up of course has been the core mission of this government um in its various forms over the last uh four and a bit years and um transport is obviously Central to it I saw uh
Something on Twitter only a couple of days ago about two friends who decided to fly to Malaga um one was from Manchester one was from Newcastle and they chose to fly to Malaga to meet each other because they found it was cheaper and faster than taking the train between
Their two respective cities um ladies and gentlemen um if this is the status quo in Britain today it’s going to be impossible to try and attack our north south divide and make leveling up a reality so it’s going to be very interesting to discuss these various
Themes um with our panel today who I’ll introduce in one second um and I’ll ask a series of questions from each of our panelists and then I will turn things over um to the room um and as I’m sure Paul has already established um questions not statements please um
Anyway without further Ado I introduce our panel um next to me I have hman who is the minister for Rail and hs2 on the other side of me I have guy opman who as well as being my own grandmother’s MP um is yeah strong decision parliamentary under Secretary of
State for uh roads and local transport um on the end there we have councelor Abby Brown the deputy chair of the local government Association and J field on the other end last but not least who is the president of women um in transport and to his kickoff um panel i’ would
Like to ask each of your thoughts um of a minute or two um on how does the current oh sorry or how our current transport infrastructure in the UK contributes to or hinders Regional inequalities hu can I um ask your thoughts first yeah well let me look
Positively so we talked quite a bit uh when Mark Harper was uh taking questions uh about Network North and hs2 but I think it’s you know it’s a really acknowledgement that within regions the national infrastructure commission found that you get a 20 25% increase in product ity uh where you
Invest in those cities and large towns within the regions than when you go into region and I think that’s one of the matters that’s really driven our decision making so how do we actually get more productivity uh out of these projects and spending them across the
Other thing I was also really struck by again in the same vein it was in my former role when I chaired the transport select committee and we were looking at the integrated rail plan which is government’s 96 billion pound plan and um you may remember those those of you
That that follow this uh that Bradford have felt quite sore uh at being missed out of the integrated rail plan as they saw it and the challenges when you talk about inequality there is you invest huge amounts of money you know towards leads towards Manchester the concern
Bradford had was that not only would they not grow but actually they would decline because their businesses would relocate so I think it’s really important that we focus on the entire geography uh rather than just parts of it and then obviously you end up with winners and losers and what we tried to
Do with the network North decision the Prime Minister instrumental in this was to ensure that all of those regions would receive monies not just projects that were listed that made sure that uh the regions were actually had had projects within that were named by government I think also crucially where
Again I believe it’s going to be a real driver uh of productivity is to give those regions the Mayors the local transport authorities their own pot of money increasing it in some regards to ensure that they can make the decisions about which transport projects will be
Best for them and I believe that sort of local people make those decisions because they know their towns and cities better than we do in whiteall so those are just a few s testers as to what we tried to do with our decision making to deliver the outcomes you you challenge
Be on William thank you um KY I’m really curious to know where his grandmother lives now but um so um I’m make four key points the first is the funding has gone up by reason of the decisions of the Prime Minister and the funding therefore is devolved fundamentally to Mayors but
Also to local authorities and if you want examples of that have a good hard look at tside all right some of you will know Ben hakin well some of you will have met him or listened to him speak he has utterly transformed the region of tside in terms of Transport
Infrastructure and the way in which that is progressing both already and going forward and this would never have been possible without the decisions that we had made you then look at individual things like buses the two bus bear is the most one of the most leveling up
Things you could possibly envisage it is utterly transformational it is long may at last it is a really really really positive stuff and then you look at um things like act travel and you ask yourself a question did it even exist active travel lingon a few years ago it
Didn’t it now has a massive budget to drive forward real change in this area so in a minute I would merely say the point that funding has gone in a leveling up way Mayors are a good example the Devolution up and down the country of the way in which we’re
Actually making it happen and then there are individual policy things that are genuinely transformational that’s what I see Splendid thank you guy um Abby thank you and and thank you very much for inviting me today so um as well as being uh Deputy chairman of of the ALG Council
In St cont Trent and was leader of the council until May of this year and I famously said when I was leader of sto content that we were rep place that would be the litmus test for leveling up and we made transport one of our full
Priorities um and I think you know we had a degree of success in that secured one of the largest allocations of leveling not funding of any place in the UK including 29.5 million pounds with a transforming cities fund and know my three MPS are all passionate about
Transport and the issue for us as a place was not just around getting to our place actually um you know it takes me just over an hour and 20 minutes to get here and I’m always entertained when I come to things and people Sayid you come down the night before well no because
We’re only like 90 minutes away but also getting around in my place historically low level of car ownership which means actually we do need public transport to be quite good now I remember because I’ve been around that long um a time when I was one of a very small number of
Conservatives who was very keen on hs2 actually within Staffordshire um and of course that’s moved away and now we’ve moved on to network North and obviously that opportunity to rephase I guess a lot of those things that I was champion which is great actually um seeing a station being developed down the road
Hopefully from my house under my own mp uh Jack Brion um which is great and I think there is nothing to knock from a local government point of view about those opportunities for tangible change that are being influenced by local residents and of course as a a big localist think that is absolutely
Fantastic but we have more to do particularly for those places who are not moving forward with Devolution deals how do we truly Empower those uh local transport organizations but equally I do think there’s a big question around the need at some point to return to strategic infrastructure too
Particularly for cities like stoon Trent where we do see a significant number of people still want to move around the country as I say we’re really well connected but actually think investment there is something we also need to have on the horizon Splendid thank you and
Jay thank you and hi everyone for those of you who don’t know women in transport we are a not for-profit and Professional Network that empowers women in the transport industry to maximize their potential we have over 1500 members and eight hubs across the UK and we work
With a range of corporate partners and yes to the question I think the current transport infrastructure does hinder Regional inequalities some of the things our members in the north say for example in the Northwest our members say that more frequent and reliable trams into Manchester would be really helpful but
Also it’s about connectivity between cities so connectivity between Manchester and Leeds for example and our members in yorshire talk about having hubs to connect up the towns and cities in the north I think it’s also important to talk about transport related social exclusion and there was a transport for
North report in 2022 I think it was that said 3.3 million people are at risk of Transport related social exclusion and women actually Bear the brunt of this because women are more likely to trip chain as we call it in the industry so that is where you might for example walk
To drop your children off at school or drive to drop your children off at school and then go and catch a train or a bus to work and perhaps drop off at pop off at the shops on the way back and also picking your children up so if you
Have po transport connectivity or unreliable services that impacts women more than men and women are then much more likely to not access paid employment as a result of that thank you Jay um and so now I’m going to reach um ask each of the panel um an individual
Um question um in Q um what measures are being taken to ensure that rail transport remains um both affordable and accessible to as wide a possible a range of the population well I think if you look at the investment since 2010 100 billion pounds has been invested into
The railways um and it’s interesting I remember writing an article for conservative home um some years back talking about the positives of privatization which not everyone agreed with at that time but what was indisputable was that at that point um passenger numbers had doubled uh under the private franchising model and also
At that time uh I think there was around about 200 billion Surplus that was being paid in uh from the railway companies uh the private uh train operators into treasury coffers you reverse that uh and what we’ve seen in the financial year 2223 uh is a 12 billion subsidy uh and
That’s £420 per household that the UK taxpayer uh is now paying in so I just sort of set the scene that everything has changed uh postco people are working uh differently they’re not traveling any longer so again if you look at South Eastern uh the sort of one of the busier
Commuter lines about 30% of their annual season tickets remain compared to to pre-co days so obviously that’s brought a real Financial challenge uh to the railways but not withstanding that we continue to invest and not withstanding that we’re talking about the netw work North uh project the plan that we have
So whilst people may sort of take issue with it they won’t be able to take issue with the fact that we’re still spending that exact same amount on transport not withstanding that the economic case is now more challenging because of the way that people have changed the Habit
Because we believe in the railway uh as the green and the clean uh way to get around uh and we’re also increasingly interested and certainly my family members are in this camp where younger people don’t tend to be taking up their driving license is uh in the same
Numbers perhaps as they were previously uh because they see the train as their uh mode of choice and bus and obviously active travel as well so I’m really proud of the way that this government has continued to invest in rail we have then had to sort of make difficult
Choices in terms of the annual increase uh in passenger fairs so this year it should have been 9% if you look at the indicator for the month we take inflation FL in fact it was 4.9% so we try and share between uh the passenger uh and the UK taxpayer and then the
Other thing I’d say where I see the growth is rail Freight so a couple of days ago myself and and Byron Davis Lord Davis the maritime Minister met all the ports and the rail Freight industry to work out how we can get more freight shifted from our UK ports through our
Rail freight companies because to me uh you know it’s essential that we grow Freight and then maybe that picks up some of the slack that we’ve seen from Passenger numbers thank you um and Guy um how does the government plan to address um the challenge of local transport specifically in rural areas um
And perhaps the special focus and so elderly grandmothers wanting to access regular buses where does your so can we just cut the chase where is this person where does your elderly grandmother live and does she yeah she lives in Pon yeah right okay so you if you go to my Twitter Fe
You will see this morning that uh elderly grandmothers can now go on a fantastic uh 1 million pound Plus active travel scheme which will allow elderly grandmothers to do the two mile Journey from ponteland which has Newcastle airport really nearby so that she can fly down to London on a sustainable
Plane in the longterm future to visit her grandson and be in a position that she could actually cycle on a beautifully graded ltn 120 amazing cycle route that uh is specifically there and because we’re now doing electric Cycles uh she could also not even do any cycling herself with minimal power
Herself and bluntly she could be transformed in her rurality uh to the urban core to visit uh long lost grandson that in my humble opinion would be the game changer that I would like to see and basically were I to come back in a month’s time to do uh con home mark 2
On transport I’d expect to see Granny Atkinson in the front row going I’m here um so the the slightly longer answer to the short question that you asked would be um let’s talk about a few things so um if you haven’t taken the ad122 if you don’t know anything about Roman history
Google it please you would know that it is unquestionably the best uh rural bus uh route in the world it is the key bus route that you wish to access uh Hadrian Wall and many other things Beyond it is transformational in terms of the way in which it allows people to do rural
Access the two pound bus fair I will bang on about this I just believe it is amazingly transformational and that it makes Buss so much more accessible so much cheaper for all of us but particularly for uh low-income people and people in rural areas uh you can
Talk about also we’ll get into the nuts and bolts of sort of Road funding as to extent Mark did when he was doing his main address but bear in mind that the degree of funding that is going to rural areas to uh maral devvo areas is off the
Charts of what it was previously and if you want an example of that look at Darlington not necessarily everyone’s idea of rural accept but the relief Road around Darlington is about 250 million okay it would if without getting into the nuts and bolts of Transport projects
It would never have happened in terms of the batting order of projects that we have and we have many many many projects that people wish to uh get ahead on on terms of uh roads and infrastructure uh in the country unless it was a mayor in
This case Ben but also backed by the local Authority backed by the local MP saying this will really help my region it will not just help the town of Darlington by taking lots of people out of D going through the middle of it but it will help all the local people who
Live in and around where rural County darham right who are massively benefited in terms of their ability to get about massively gamechanging all of this is because of decisions on what is called crsds uh one and two which is the um sustainable Transport Systems that we’re introducing and the funding that we’re
Giving to Mays the M staff is transformational not just for cities but also for the rurality around it um I could go on about active travel uh again uh I made the point about one scheme that your granny can access where she to jump on her electric bike there are five
Other schemes in my patch uh in rural Northland that we are pursuing including a 9 million pound cycle Super Highway uh initially between hex and Corbridge these things are transformational never happened in the previous five years and that was under the coalition this is all happening in the last three or four
Years um thank you guy I’ll make sure to let N know um but one one um subject that you’ve touched on there um and um H’s touched on um as well is um the question I’m going to turn to you for for you Abby is um how can local
Authorities based on your um own experience also based on perhaps what other members of the panel um have mentioned how can local authorities collaborate more effectively with both central government and private stakeholders um in trying to enhance and deliver trans support infrastructure okay well so I think there’s three kind
Of broad areas that I would pick up there I think the first is knowing your area um when you become a council leader you don’t arrive fully formed and you learn things on the way and often you know things are your views are influenced I passed my driving test I
Was 17 but I actually live in a ward where car ownership’s really really low two and three people don’t have access to a private vehicle in the world that I live in and that isn’t because public transport’s great that’s simply because they cannot afford to run one bus service isn’t brilliant and actually
What I am seeing is a focus by my own mp on wanting to open up Railway stations because we see that as a connectivity um opportunity but equally there’s something about then the W that I that I represent which does have a relatively high level of car ownership explaining
To people why the rail could be an alternative for them you know if you lived in Manchester potentially or Birmingham there’s an expectation that you would catch a tram well in so cont Trent we haven’t had trams for decades so it’s trying to explain to the public
How this could be an opportunity both for you to leave your car at home but actually how to look for an alternative to um catching the The Irregular buses I think there’s equally something then again we heard this touched on earlier around active travel um somewhere in the
Middle of covid I decided that um I wanted to start running um and when you lead your counsil again people issue with slightly strange challenges um of course you don’t know what it’s like Council to go out and do these things so um I decided of course I did want to go
And do these things and I managed to run from the center of stoke Contra to my house up a hill um five or six miles away and I didn’t get run over um I did manage to successfully cross the road at the age of 44 and all those sorts of
Things now it’s not going to be for everyone and I totally get that but I also think there’s something about understanding your place um again living in a relatively builtup urban area people often talk about potentially the lack of green space stok on TR is one of
The greenest cities in the country and there’s loads of Greenways actually had a really good um industrial uh infrastructure decades ago which still exists in terms of railway lines and things like that we have canals across the city too and and I travel along those as well now maybe I don’t want to
Do it at night or or certain you know when it’s snowy or things like that but actually it’s there and I I think you know there needs to be an onus and there should be and there is an onus on local Authority leaders to understand their area and also to understand the partners
And their appetites to do things around this the second one I would say is uh Devolution opportunities we do Focus quite a lot understandably because it’s big and it’s sexy and leaders like to pose in hard hats and highways on regeneration but actually the opportunities around transport um are
Massively underrated and sadly derided sometimes by mins I think you know the transport opportunities there are huge around Devolution and it’s right that local Authority leaders embrace them just as much as they do regeneration along with um skills as well and other elements within regeneration that are
There the final one that I would say is about being Innovative and creative um I’ve had the benefit of working with three fantastic um conservative members of parliament when I I was leader of a council and had the opportunity to come right into government and Champion my
Brilliant city um but I’ve also as somebody who’s really passionate about local government had the opportunity to influence government so don’t believe that as a local Authority leader you cannot get into the heart of government and you can’t pitch your ideas and shape things the government station agenda is
Really exciting and interesting but I think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with people like me saying that’s really interesting but I’d like to do it slightly like this please and I actually got traction doing that as well multiple times to do it so I think there’s something about local Authority leaders
Feeling that they’ve got the agency to pitch Devolution in a way that they um want to um whether it’s around new structures or takes around that I think there’s also the opportunities around linkages of things that we are seen on a n on a national stage whether that’s for
Example tourism with the government’s new agenda around uh destination management Partnerships that are coming forward whether it’s in terms of business as we see the end of leps and where that gets subsumed into local authorities whether it’s around business Improvement districts Economic Development I could go on and on in
Terms of the opportunities that the government has given us to link up transport to these new opportunities the local authorities and partners are often the key Stak holders in and finally and I’ve already touched on this a little bit campaigning heard about tside airport I firmly believe that my own MP
J Brion was a big driver for the government’s Reviving your Railway scheme by just simply lobbying about something that was really important to where we were um and similar another scheme that um I’m very well aware as the A500 A50 Corridor that runs through stoon Trent and across to the East
Midlands again you can’t it could be hard work to do all these things but it is ultimately incredibly satisfying to see schemes that you’ve taken from being an issue that’s raised on a few doorsteps right the way up to uh number 10 and into Parliament Splendid thank
You and um again last but not least um to jro I think one thing that that struck me about the Secretary of State’s um interview with Paul earlier um is that he points out of course that when we think about transport we we perhaps disproportionately think about people
Like rail commuters when the vast majority of course Journeys are actually taken by car they’re taken by other forms of Transport um and obviously you know with your particular focus and your particular role um how would you say that we can ensure transport policies are delivering for everyone’s needs not
Just narrowly focusing on sort of small specific groups but actually as you say you know especially helping those who might take several different forms of transport in a single day sure that makes sense and I do think one thing to say about rail though is that rail is
Actually one of the industries that has bounced back from covid and according to latest statistics from Railway industry Association rail passenger levels are now at 98% of pre-o levels and when you compare that to something like bus that is still struggling to get passengers back and I think that’s why the the two
Pound fair is is really welcome but in terms of how you can make sure transport policies meet everyone’s needs the really important things to do are Consulting your communities and your point AB be about knowing your area that’s really important because local people know their areas they know they
Know what transport schemes they need they know what what transport will work for them um so it’s working with your communities Consulting them engaging the groups that represent your communities so business groups women’s groups disabled people’s organizations making sure that you’re covering all the protected characteristics and the intersections between those protected
Characteristics and then also very importantly we should mention Workforce diversity because the transport industry is only the workforce is only one quarter women and if you’ve got you know transport is used by everyone we all use transport different forms of Transport so you will deliver much better for your customers
And transport is a customer service industry you will deliver better for your customers if your Workforce is representative of the customers using it Splendid um I know somebody who recently had the pleasure of um taking his government to the London transport Museum I can confirm that it doesn’t
Matter which sex you are you can get an awful lot of interest and enjoyment out of our various trans networks um and so now I’m going to open up um questions to um the audience um as to say um the usual refrain about um questions not statements please but um I’ve seen
Already that we seem to be very good at keeping thatat in this room um so who’d like to go first um the lady in the second row here please so equally put Place T microphones verying um Milda from Railway industry Association again I have a question to the rail Minister um
About the rail ticketing reform so when the gbr was announced it was um considered that potentially this G Great British Railways could be the central place for um selling tickets and now the decision has been um taken away saying that the government is no longer pursuing that what is your vision for
Reforming Railway ticketing and fairs uh well this gives me the perfect opportunity to uh become the sales sales person uh because today is the start of the Great British Rail sale so there’s up to a million uh tickets uh I should say just over a million tickets that are
Available on the railway uh which you can purchase for a week uh up to 50% off so if you want to go from Birmingham uh to Bristol that would cost you £530 rather than 060 I could go on and on anyway log on uh or you can go to the
Ticket office uh and actually buy one of the tickets because actually we really want to grow the railways and actually this to me is an opportunity when we did this two years ago we saw by data showing that there was 70,000 people that invested in that rail sale to give
Themselves a journey at a cheaper price they never used the railways before so that’s where we’re really determined to try and find ways to grow our Railway and you are right on ticket simplification uh I think if you look at London it surrounds where you’ve got Simplicity pay as you go then people
Trust the price and they just tap in and tap out uh it’s straightforward now to do that you then actually have to Baseline your pricing and of course they’re always Los losers as well as winners uh but we have rolled out an extra 52 of those stations into the
Southeast uh and we will continue to roll out more um it was an election Manifesto commitment now before anyone says well hang on what about the rest of the country um part of the Devolution deals the guy was talking about uh we have um put money towards um pay to go
Projects into the West Midlands and Manchester uh and just written to both Mayors about about that in order to get that moving as well um so we do know where you’ve got simplification then things work we’ve also trialed and again all this is Great British Rail uh
Railways so gbr actually using gbr as the new body it’s Bas in leads sorry Derby going mad to be able to actually do this activity because we see them as the future um they have also audited uh two and a half thousands of our of our stations on accessibility again to make
Sure that more people can use uh the railway and the railway stations um and then the last thing I’d say with with regards to what they’re doing is the simplification of pricing on Ln you know which again is makes it much more straightforward to sort of buy singles
Uh rather than find that your price of a single is just under what a return would actually be so all of that is actually occurring from gbr because we want all of the reform all the exciting uh initiatives that are going on the railway right now to be led by the Great
British Rail transition team uh and they’re doing a great job for us um thank you another question please um the Gentleman on the right hand side thank you James shuttleworth West Coast Railway is a private operator which has got nothing to do with the question um really for Guy having heard all about
The wonders of ponteland um and I’m well aware of what Ben hin has done up in the Northeast clearly have an interested Railways there as well um what I live in the Peak Park I live in the National Park I live in delire Dales and and I’m also a
Parish counselor and I get a lot of earache in fact we all get a lot of earache about public transport now the railways we have a limit we have a very good Railway service I’m not complaining about that for once but the bus services and we get deluged every weekend with
Four-wheel drives coming out with their bicycles they don’t contribute very much how do we solve that problem of the IM um The Visitors meure visitors to these areas um I’m also we’re also my family are land owners you get gateways blocked by people inconsiderate people the
Village People do not want to go out all of that I I’ll cut off the statement I’m sorry how do you solve the rural issue so let me let me try and address some of those points you could talk about by ways open to all traffic you
Can talk about local zoning you can there’s a variety of things that you and I can have up a sidebar about I suppose there’s a couple of things a can we give you extra funding that’s always a good start because without all any funding you can’t do these projects you’ll be aware
That if you’ve got a mayor then the crsts funds is very helpful to those we’ve talked about that if you don’t have a May then uh you’re going to be in a position that you’ll be lined up for what is called the litz funding uh that’s the local integrated transport
Settlement that’s coming out of hs2 money that is extra money that you haven’t previously had as a local Authority announcement will be coming as they say soon um that will assist without a shadow of a doubt I know how I remember Abby because I answered a specific debate on the 18th of December
Uh from her Stoke MP’s making the case Rob Len who I think is your MP is doing amazing stuff in the area as his others um to try and make the case for infrastructure be improved in the local area there’s there’s a bunch of stuff to
Take up you and I should have a side chat Splendid um another question um can we have the gentleman in the white shirt uh here thank you hello uh Jack Richardson I’m a freelance journalist it’s it’s an interesting panel talking about how transport can actually drive leveling up
Particularly in terms of wider economic benefits but I’m interested in um something else we talked about the procurement ACT earlier and how that’s that’s that talks about most advantageous rather than most economic so how do you think we can get the most of actually supplying h supplying transport infrastructure such as making
Trains in this country within this new framework in order to drive leveling up uh can you uh yeah perhaps I should take that so though we’re really proud of the train manufacturers we have in this country we’ve got four now um and you know you go to those plants so we have
Hatachi in Newton a cliff um we have olom in um leads I’ve got it again Derby confusing leads and Derby think I’ve never been out um and CF in Newport and South Wales and then Seamans uh up in ghoul and so we’re really proud of those four train manufacturers the big
Challenge for them and for us uh is that our Rolling Stock has also got uh fresher so the average age of our Rolling Stock is 16.8 years now it’s Fallen because we’ve invested in so much so we’ve had I think it’s 8,000 new carriages for our Railway trains since
2010 so the big challenges in order to sort of feed a growing number of Manufacturers we’ve got to get them manufacturing for the globe so that they don’t just sell to this country they sell abroad now some countries are quite restrictive in terms that they will
Require uh their own orders to be made in their country so they protect their own um uh order book uh and production line but there are an awful lot that won’t so a lot of the role I do and someone saying to me why was I over in
In Colombia uh recently and I’m over there because I’m actually drumming up business for our Railways so I was over actually with the Elizabeth uh line team uh the cross rail international team that built cross rail we want to actually Market what we’ve done in this country abroad so that we can win
Contracts uh and bogatar is is a good example of that so actually com about Joe’s point whil we we’ve seen numbers come back um and they’re always welcome that we’ve got Leisure numbers that are in that mix um so we’re still about 20% down in terms of Revenue where we were
Preco um so you know we we want to make sure that we’re investing in Railway also in our manufacturing capability so we should be really proud we’ve got four amazing manufacturers we just haven’t got as many orders domestically um albeit the hs2 order because phase one
Is going ahead 140 miles uh will be great news obviously for two of those manufacturers that did a joint bid and succeeded can I add two very quick points um which is first of all on procurement give long-term funding so the 8.3 for uh Road improvements and the
Like is local Authority funding over uh 8.3 billion over 11 years the beauty of that is as I spoke to Kent County Council only last week they’re able then to invest in very funky bits of Kit like the pothole Pro manufactured in this country by JCB because they know they’ve
Got that enhanced funding over an 11year period and effectively you can buy the thing on a long-term basis can’t do it if you’re stuck to same old budgets this transforms the local authorities budget in terms of how they can do it the second bit is have long-term projects
Which we can then get people to buy into the easy example is zero emission buses so we are phasing out diesel in a whole bunch of ways and petrol consumption a whole bunch of ways but if I’m a bus manufacturer I know that coming this way
Over the next 5 10 15 years commissioned and helped by the DFT is zero emission buses so I can really commit longer term I have to commit with other compete with other people in this country that’s true and I’ve got to compete internationally but I know that this country is going to
Commission a whole bunch of stuff so that longer term we’re all going to be going on zero emission buses that allows me the Strategic thinking the planning and the ability to invest those are two other examples um Splendid um Joe did you have any thoughts just to somebody
The industry yeah the the key thing that I’m thinking about here is actually because you you mentioned the wider economic benefits um but also there’s social benefits and procurement enables you to specify things like number of apprenti ships benefits back to the community in terms of jobs for young
People or investing in local businesses that’s something that can be written into procurement Frameworks and government contracts and should be because of you know yes transport investment brings economic benefits it also brings social benefits as well Splendid um thank you um can we have the um lady up there towards the back yes
Thank you hi um I’m Caroline Whitney from the community Transport Association um so community Transport and community-led transport could be at the the heart of leveling up um transport in many areas particularly um our rural communities um I’m sure Nanny Atkinson uses community Transport quite regularly um there’s a dial ride
Yeah but the the challenges that we’re seeing as a sector is that we aren’t embedded and we aren’t recognized and the value isn’t truly understood um the 2 pound cap scheme actually is a thing for me because unfortunately um many dial ride schemes community transport were made ineligible
So what we’ve ended up with with is a scheme that actually for people with access needs they have to pay more for their transport than others um and that’s really something we want to try and address um and work with government to do so my question would be to the
Panel actually what more can we do to ensure that Community Le transport and community Transport is valued understood and is at the heart of trans transport planning moving forward thank you um I’ll ask your thoughts on on that in a second um but first Abby I mean do you
Have any sort of similar experiences from your time local government um I’m going to say no because actually stoon is a very tightly drawn City where in general there’s not necessarily been the opportunity um for that to come forward but I think you know on a broader
Footing um my uh you know I I don’t lead a accounts any longer um I do things for the LGA and I spend a lot of time I guess reflecting on maybe the things that I would have done differently um I like to think that I hopefully I was a
Fairly um consultative Council leader but I think the opportunity for community Transport organizations to engage is something that I would encourage um you to do and to encourage your your members to do you know counsil is all like MP there’s a turnover uh period in this and you’re only as good
As what you’re told so really you know that the opportunity is there to get engaged it’s not always necessarily obvious how you do that but I think ultimately we we are only as good as the information we receive or equally the opportunity sometimes that pointed out either by yourself as a lobbying
Organization to to councils um or indeed by local organizations directly to the council or to the ward council or to the council leader or the cabinet member and so on and so forth so you know I think I think there’s an opportunity there to raise awareness yourselves through that
Engagement thank you um guy I think yes and yes to valued and understood I think there is a traction issue which is a perfectly legitimate debate for us to have which is um most of these decisions that you’re relate referring to would normally be funded by local authorities
All right um there maybe other examples that are maral funding but very few would be national government coming in it would normally be devolved in some way how do you then get the best access to that and best uh capability doing that I think that’s a legitimate discussion and a legitimate debate there
Are very very very good examples and I think there is good evidence that dialer rides are fantastic Al good things and the way that for example bus transport is changing is very different in terms of how it was five or 10 years ago in terms of the local accessibility in
Certain towns I represent pretty much the most rural community in the whole of the country you know I have 61,000 uh voters but well over 600,000 sheep um it is very very sparely it takes me two hours to drive across it it is proper rurality proper difficulty uh on terms
Of Community Access I get the point the devil’s in the detail but I think having a really good relationship with your Council leader your highways teams and more particularly the head of um uh transport at the local Authority is utterly key thank you um another question um there’s a gentleman right
Right up there at the back thank you um rodri mccullock chesman District transport users group um uh guy you’ve been been very eloquent on the virtues of the uh 2 cap uh bus Fair um as I recall it was originally introduced as a temporary measure last year is the long-term funding for that
Secure so I love the first two lines of first two lines of yours the last person who called me eloquent was in about 1640 um so the answer to that is the 2 funding was originally introduced uh for a particular period of time we’ve repeatedly extended it it is current for
The entirety of 2024 very hopeful it will continue thereafter clearly all such matters are a matter for the chancellor I will take on board the point when I see Jeremy at the vote later Splendid um I have a question from the AG on the left here uh so
Sorry I hope that reference that I’m on the left is not to do with my politics uh my name is me to it my my name is Martin Wright um conservative member and I live in central pach very near us there’s very exciting project of rail happening at present um
Line from Oxford to Cambridge the potential for travel in of housing will be immense long after I’ve gone it’s being built at present and I raised an eyebrow and my question is wear the masks why isn’t it being electrified H um so the first phase of that which goes from Oxford uh to
Bletchley uh and will involve uh uh a I say a new station in Winslow but actually it’s a it’s a station that’s put back there uh that’s a project quite close to my heart because I went to a school in a town nearby windsday called Buckingham uh and when I was at school
Which is obviously a long time ago uh we were joined by a lot more uh School members in the penultimate year because Winslow had lost its secondary school because it didn’t have enough children it didn’t have enough houses you go to Winslow station now and you see not just
The new station but the new school because there’s new houses as well it’s a great example of how transport is an absolute game Cher uh in you know for our towns and providing opportunities housing in particular getting people on the ladder so you can tell I’m quite
Excited about that project um look just in terms of actually why is that not electrified because obviously it’s on um a sort of older Railway line where the architect is still there in terms of the bridges uh you know the victorians did amazing things for us in giving us the
First Railways which we gave to the world uh but arguably it didn’t quite put the bridg is high enough so that’s why people say why can’t we have double deck of trains uh in this country so when we actually look at the next phases which will involve new Railway the
Second phase uh is as we take the railway from Bletchley over to uh Bedford so there a master line and then as we go from Bedford to Cambridge a newer line then obviously that will be a brand new Railway line um and so we will actually look at the cap abilities for
Electrification and the other thing which I’m interested by is the future is just quite extraordinary in terms of will we need the expensive overheads you know one of the challenges for Network rail is it’s 2 and a half million pounds of electrification per um per kilometer which is expensive obviously the more
You do the cheaper it goes almost 75% of the journeys that passengers take on the railway are electrified because the most popular lines are electrified but in the future do we actually have trains that will charge themselves for apart and then continue to go on so we have one
Eye on the the future as well but that that’s sort bit of a caleidoscope of that particular line but I I share your enthusiasm for that lineer so I hope that answer uh was clear Splendid thank you um as somebody who’s um often used the double deck trains in ampam I can
Only urge you that if anything can be done to bring them to to the UK please do so because they’re absolutely fabulous um the challenge of going first the uh our quite um the lady on the end there hello it’s Jennifer Scott from Sky again sorry um it’s a question to Hugh
And Abby actually because you’ve both talked about the benefits that public transport can bring to communities and Hugh you mentioned especially with young people who and you know people who can’t afford cars aren’t buying cars Etc so again going back to that hs2 funding
Where so much of it or a big portion of it is being put into roads do you think that’s the right priority and just a second short one for everybody really is are you as open-minded as uh Mr Harper was to Andy Street’s consideration of public investment to get sorry private
Investment to get hs2 going again um Abby would you like to kick off I’m gonna do those um in Reverse um as I alluded to um always been quite a big advocate for hs2 I can see the benefit for it um when it’s interesting is when
I talk to Residents they’re kind of you know it takes about 10 15 minutes off the journey time from St content to l Lon but actually those 50 minutes can be crucial because they make the difference between actually whether somewhere like stoon Trant um could therefore become commutable versus whether it couldn’t so
My husband actually works in London for two days a week um he commutes backwards and forwards so it is doable but he probably isn’t every day of the week actually at the moment but and we underestimate how important those 10 15 minutes can be but it also sends a
Really strong message um uh when I first became Deputy leader of the council in 2015 I inherited a scenario where stoke had gone head-to-head with crew about whether we would be the Hub station for hs2 and I inherited a scenario where the previous Council were going to JV the
Government well clearly fought for the new conservative poster girl as the deputy leader that probably wasn’t the best look so we kind of put that to one side and looked around how we could work with crew to get the best benefits from hs2 going there and you know the amount
Of investment that came to the city it’s not not huge you know I’m not going to say it’s transform the city but if you came to stok on Trent now um as I know that guy has done recently he can’t fail to have seen the two massive cranes on
The skyline right by Stoke station now I’d like to think that my own personality Charisma sale of stoke cont over 8 years were what brought that developer to the city but the reality is you drive by the railway station which tells you everything you need to know
That it’s all about people who are coming to and from the city by rail so whilst we still have a really great connection as a City hs2 without doubt has to be something um that is tmic in terms of delivering that leveling up for a place like Stoke equally like crew
Like other places we’ve heard about moving forward um I think in terms of whether the hs2 money going into um Network North is the right thing to do I’m going to say yes it is however I think go back to what I said at the start which I think we need to be
Thinking about how um we do maintain equally Strategic investment one of the things that I feel really passionately about in terms of my city is that it is almost a dual layer of things that are going on here um the challenges that places like sto contant and other Left
Behind places have had have been 20 30 40 50 60 years in the making and it’s absolutely right that we invest at a community level but also we need to invest at a strategic level too as you know that’s where the growth is going to be within cities thank you and before I
Um attend the ministers for the 100 billion pound question um can I get Joe I wondered if you had any thoughts on on either of those uh questions so yeah just in terms of the benefits to communities of public transport absolutely but you need to engage the
Community and ask them what works for them and that’s why the more local level stuff evolution is actually really important because it does put more power into communities for local decision making and on the private sector investment we do have models that have worked in London for example on Cross
Rail and the northern line extension as well so so yeah it um guy so I’m going to go slightly left field for you because I’m G to park Andy street because others are answer that better and more eloquently than myself but I spent five years as the pensions
Minister I was responsible obviously of State pensions about20 billion pound but 1.5 trillion of uh private sector pension all of us all our Auto enrolled pensions all your DB pensions all your DC stuff we could do so so much more with that the Australians do so you know
The Australian super funds own things like you know Sydney airport they own bits of King cross they own huge uh infrastructure up and down the country and we can and should harness that the Chancellor’s reforms that he announced uh at the mansion house Beach last summer press of that but we could really
Put rocket boosters up that that would be my first thing the second is you can find individual examples where local communities have benefited from private sector investment if you go to abeli in Scotland it is surrounded by wind farms now whether you like or dislike wind
Farms those 50 uh turbines pay for all the infrastructure in abeli it is fascinating to see there is a beautifully renovated Village Hall Cinema all manner of things the dialer rides that we all want is paid for by section 106 section 106 agreements we could do that way way way way better so
That when your housing development comes in the community Transport people are then bidding for some of that private sector cash rather than it necessarily going solely on for example um housing infrastructure in other places and things like that but the pension fund stuff to my mind is amazing I’d finish
With my final point is yes we talk about cross roil as a great example of uh the state meeting the private sector and paying for stuff but other countries do um bonds they take precepts and council tax and utilize that and put a penny on your council tax to pay for local
Infrastructure and things like that we don’t do that nearly as much in my opinion we could easily look at examples of that it’s a good International example of how we would be transformational thank you and um so Jennifer yeah your two points roads and then being openminded so I mean on the
Roads front I mean I’m sort of fully multimodal um so I tend to either drive to my station or I ride my bike to station and then if I’m riding my bike I bring my bike up to London and use that or I um cycle around the constituency
For work um but I use my my car sometimes I don’t I haven’t really seen much of the ministerial car CU I always try and walk or cycle everywhere around London so I’m a big actually because I need it that’s the whole thing I everyone should take up active travel
Not just for the environment because actually in my instance because of my waste um so we need our roads and the fact is that you know if I cycle on the roads at the moment or indeed when driving even a couple of miles to my stage
Then I’m afraid to say the potholes are so vast it’s an send series of it’s really dangerous because people are just avoiding it you’ll all have similar stories from your local Road Network the weather’s been really unkind to the road Network so I absolutely understand uh
The need to to take some of that money uh and put it across the most important thing is it’s all being spent on transport and transport is you know everything should actually feed into each other’s system so I see all modes uh as being positive in that regard in
Terms of being openminded about what the the Mayors are bringing forward so as Mark was rightly saying we meet the Mayors on a regular basis I mean later on this afternoon I’m going to be chatting to Andy burnner about one of his stations actually with a conservative MP James Grundy and good
Cross party Coalition agreement on what they want to do with goldn station uh tomorrow we be meeting Steve rod and so we meet and engage with them all the time um and obviously that’s something that they’re actually pushing forward the other thing I should say is that you
Know again as a conservative I always welcome private sector investment in the railways it’s something that we’re looking at in Heath uh and you know we’ve seen for example the hs1 but our plan is clear so they may have something else that they want to actually bring
Forward we’ll see what that is that’s their their proposal our plan is that we’re not taking hs2 further north eventually we will then look to sell that land off so you know we’ll need to make sure that what we’re doing is not there’s no overlap in terms of what
Other people actually want to take to do themselves that is our plan and then we’re going to invest in all these projects across the north I just and the mid that I just believe ultimately will deliver more regional growth to every part of the country that needs it
Splendid thank you and I think that’s about all that we’ve got um time for uh ladies and gentlemen um so thank you very much um for listening can we have a hand please for all of our panel thank you thank very much great cheers thank you
1 Comment
It's amazing you're still bothering with any of this. You're all going to be out of a job in a few months. All this "levelling up" nonsense will be cast out along with you.