1 year ago
65
For those of us living and working in the north it has become achingly clear that our transport system is broken. Long before any strike action was announced, the region’s public transport was suffering from creaking infrastructure, staff shortages and a daily dose of long delays and routine cancellations. For those of us who commute between northern cities by train, getting to work in decent time has become a game of chance. Others have become used to missing medical appointments and elderly relatives becoming isolated.
It’s time Labour made a bold stance on transport, as part of its commitment to levelling up and transitioning to net zero. There is plenty of evidence to lay bare the regional inequality in transport spending. We know that if the north had received the same transport investment as London in the decade between 2009 and 2019, it would have received £86bn more than it did.
And yet transport is usually the area of investment where politicians feel most comfortable. Within government, the transport models that sit behind spending decisions are considered the “gold standard”, reassuring ministers that investment will result in economic returns. Investing in transport is an opportunity for some visible “hard hat” progress, and even the Treasury agrees that efficient transport networks are the backbone of any economy. Investing in transport pays for itself – Transport for the North estimates that £70bn of investment in the north’s strategic transport plan could contribute an additional £100bn in economic growth.
But it turns out that nothing has been certain in politics in 2022. Plans for HS2 and a full commitment to Northern Powerhouse Rail – comprising a new line from Liverpool through Bradford to Hull – have become political footballs, thrown and dropped by successive prime ministers.
To break the current cycle of transport misery, Labour first must publicly commit to the principle that regional growth is our route back to national growth. The alternative is a dated economic narrative that supports spending in the places that are already more productive, like the south-east of England. As we’ve seen, this overheats the housing market, increases congestion and pollution thanks to more cars on the road, and will not fairly or sustainably change our country’s economic fortunes. Transport is a key driver of regional growth, and better transport would help communities in the north prosper.
The next step for Labour would be to supercharge the work of their people already in power. The party has so far shied away from institutionalising the full force of its metro mayors across the country. At the gift of the government of the day, metro mayors are more often provided with capital budgets for transport, but less often provided with revenue to help reduce public transport fares. Capital investments pay for building or maintaining assets, while revenue spending is for day-to-day expenditure.
Despite this, there has been some progress at the local level already. Metro mayors, including Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester, introduced a £2 cap on single bus journeys earlier this year. Downing Street has now followed suit. Labour should support metro mayors and local transport authorities by providing them with greater flexibility to choose between capital and revenue spend, depending on local priorities, and financially support them to be bolder on reduced fares on an ongoing basis, including daily tickets caps. Encouraging the public back on to public transport is also critical for reaching net zero goals.
Labour must also get behind bus franchising at the local level – which would enable metro mayors to regulate a fragmented privatised system – and facilitate the rollout of the same approach in areas that don’t have a metro mayor. Where providers are failing, be it bus or rail, Labour must be clear that there will be no dodging of fines, no bonuses, and that contracts will be at risk.
For large-scale inter-city transport, the suggestion for Labour is simple. Commit to the proposed plans for HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail in full to increase connectivity and capacity across the north. This would be a critical way of boosting both private and additional public investment in the north. The “red wall” voters who are losing trust in the government’s attempts to level up will no doubt take note, too.
The dreaded train fare rises will kick in in March. Against a backdrop of fundamentally flawed train services, unaffordable bus fares and “performance” bonuses for the companies entrusted with running our public infrastructure, fare rises will be hard to stomach for those of us living and working in the north.
A simple backbone of infrastructure stretching from north to south and east to west should be the basic starting point. Following through on promises to invest, paying hardworking staff properly, and prioritising passengers above profit are all necessary and possible. If Labour wants to jump ahead on levelling up and prioritise plans on net zero, getting our basic transport infrastructure right has surely got to be the first step.
Zoë Billingham is the director of the thinktank IPPR North
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