So, we know the new transport secretary is a fan of new schemes. But will he succeed in making the case for bus and rail funding?
Mark Harper: honest, straight-talking and competent
Mark Harper’s return to ministerial office after six years in the wilderness, punctuated only by an embarrassingly unsuccessful attempt to gain the Tory party leadership in 2019, was probably as much of a surprise to him as it was to the rest of us.
His last role had been as chief whip for Theresa May, the political equivalent of holding a hand grenade with the pin slowly edging out.
His rehabilitation shows perhaps that some rationality has returned to the appointment of ministers, after the Crazy World of Liz Truss. As I wrote in my last column, I found Mark to be honest, straight-talking and competent when we were ministers together in the Home Office.
Yet we cannot assume positive personal characteristics will be enough. Events tend to make the weather rather than ministerial initiatives.
Ministers generally arrive at their department following appointment with some specific objectives they want to achieve. For me, these included everything from the creation of the Local Sustainable Transport Fund thorough to the banning of private sector wheel clamping (which I slipped through when Philip Hammond, who was against the ban, went on holiday).
It is not clear what policy objectives, if any, Mark will have brought to his new role, for transport has never seemed to be one of his priorities as an MP. One has emerged subsequently, namely his commitment to infrastructure investment.
He used his first public outing as secretary of state to go off his prepared script to talk about new schemes. This was his voice, rather than that of the careful civil servants who will have fashioned his written words
It was interesting for me to note that at the event to celebrate the completion of the Elizabeth Line, where both he and I were present, he used his first public outing as secretary of state to go off his prepared script to talk about new schemes. This was his voice, rather than that of the careful civil servants who will have fashioned his written words.
He observed that while plenty of people find reasons to object to new schemes, very few if any object when they are finished, and the objectors use them just as much as those who supported the scheme do.
He is undoubtedly right to suggest this. I recall when HS1 was first proposed to go through the Kent countryside, all sorts of lurid arguments against the idea appeared. Ashford was going to be ruined. The noise would be horrendous and make life unliveable for people even several miles away. And so on. They were all wrong and I doubt if there is now anybody who thinks it was a mistake to build HS1.
Mark Harper was clearly referring in his unscripted aside not just to the Elizabeth Line but probably also to HS2, which he is on record as supporting, and probably the Northern Powerhouse and East-West rail too. Unfortunately, in my judgement, it might also suggest his commitment to large-scale, pollution-creating, traffic- inducing road schemes.
But back to those external events. Even if he has arrived in office with a list of policies and projects he wants to pursue, he may find that his agenda is largely set for him, and often by matters outside his control.
He will have arrived at the Department for Transport to find a bulging in-tray, at the top of which will have been the lamentably poor service for passengers on the railway, as a result of either ongoing strike action by the unions or the shockingly bad performance of certain train operating companies. Even on the days when there are no strikes, cancellations are at an all-time high and services sporadic.
The new secretary of state has made an encouraging start here, talking calmly and avoiding unnecessary antagonistic comments. It was sensible of him to meet RMT boss Mick Lynch and certainly helped improve relations and so bring a settlement potentially closer.
It is perhaps reckless of me to make predictions in print that might turn out to be hopelessly wrong, but as I write this on the evening of Monday 28th, my reading of the situation is that a deal is much closer with perhaps only the reluctance of the Treasury to give the green light the last stumbling block.
If a deal can be signed off, and signed off in time to enable the planned December strikes to be pulled, that will be seen as a big tick for the new transport secretary
If a deal can be signed off, and signed off in time to enable the planned December strikes to be pulled, that will be seen as a big tick for the new transport secretary. It will also mean, for these must be the terms of any agreement, a decent pay rise for rail workers, and a sweeping away of what used to be called Spanish practices (a term that goes back hundreds of years and which doubtless and understandably Spanish people regard as somewhat pejorative). Both these outcomes would be very welcome.
Also near the top of his in-tray will be a paper on Great British Railways. Is its creation still government policy, is it still seen as the guiding mind of the future, or is the new transport secretary going to pull the emergency communication cord?
A decision on this really cannot be allowed to drag on very much longer. Whether or not the concept established by his predecessor, Grant Shapps, is entirely to his liking, I suspect Mark Harper will take a pragmatic view, both that GBR is already too far down the track to be derailed, and that the last thing the industry needs is more uncertainty. And in any case, there is no obvious Plan B.
These matters should be largely within the control of the transport secretary, but any departmental secretary of state soon finds that their room for manoeuvre on a wide range of issues is limited by the idiosyncrasies of No. 10 and the behemoth that is No. 11.
And on top of that, the Leader of the House, Penny Mordaunt, will hugely influence what legislation is found time for in parliament. The DfT desperately needs a slot for a major transport Bill, primarily to create GBR but also to deal with a whole range of other issues that have been hanging around, including putting in place a licensing regime for e-scooters and pedicabs, and regulating driverless cars. Mark Harper needs to use his influence and elbows to win this slot.
We have not yet had the announcement on rail fares for next year. We used to learn of the increase in August to take effect the following January, but last year the increase slipped into the spring.
This is another flashpoint. Some in government will argue that fares should be held, both to help tackle cost of living increases and in recognition that service on the tracks has been pretty poor. You can see that a big increase, anywhere near inflation, will cause outrage, and I am sure both ministers and officials in the DfT would rather not have to defend this.
The Treasury, however, is more likely to take the view that rail has been heavily supported through Covid and it is time to claw back some of that money. It is the Treasury, not Mark Harper and certainly not Huw Merriman, the new rail minister, who will make that call.
If I were still a DfT minister, I would be pointing out to the Treasury that pushing up fares may actually drive people off the railways and so reduce income to them
If I were still a DfT minister, I would be pointing out to the Treasury that pushing up fares may actually drive people off the railways and so reduce income to them. By contrast, on the East Coast Main Line, cheap fares from open access newcomer Lumo, which LNER has felt obliged to mirror to a degree, has pushed up passenger numbers way above pre-Covid levels, no mean feat, and so increased income.
It is an argument based on Treasury income that is much more likely to be won rather than anything about the cost of living, and certainly not one pointing out the environmental advantages of rail, which are of little interest to the Treasury.
Equally, the DfT will have its work cut out persuading the chancellor and his officials that all the promised rail improvements should still go ahead, and it will be a test of Mark Harper’s clout to what extent he can stave off the calls for cuts to the rail capital programme.
The Treasury will also hold the cards when it comes to bus funding. The large, indeed unprecedented sum earmarked for the National Bus Strategy for England, announced just before the pandemic, has been whittled down, initially by a big commitment to cycling, then by the use of funds to provide short-term prop-up support to the industry through the pandemic.
We have an extension to the support package, and a £2 bus fare from January, both rushed out in the dying days, no hours, of Grant Shapps and No. 10 transport advisor Andrew Gilligan, which will take us through to the end of March.
It would clearly not be sensible to then have a cliff edge, for that would mean a whole swathe of bus services being withdrawn, which in turn would to a degree render pointless the support that was provided during Covid to keep them operating. Yet is the Treasury, back in mindset terms to cutting spending and balancing the books, prepared to listen to pleas from the transport secretary and his DfT colleagues to keep some sort of safety net in place?
Mark Harper may have some good ideas – we will see – but the test for him, as it always is for transport secretaries, is how far he can get others to ease his passage rather than block his way.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Norman Baker served as transport minister from May 2010 until October 2013. He was Lib Dem MP for Lewes between 1997 and 2015.
This story appears inside the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
A challenging in-tray for Mark Harper
by Passenger Transport on Dec 1, 2022 • 2:52 pm No CommentsSo, we know the new transport secretary is a fan of new schemes. But will he succeed in making the case for bus and rail funding?
Mark Harper’s return to ministerial office after six years in the wilderness, punctuated only by an embarrassingly unsuccessful attempt to gain the Tory party leadership in 2019, was probably as much of a surprise to him as it was to the rest of us.
His last role had been as chief whip for Theresa May, the political equivalent of holding a hand grenade with the pin slowly edging out.
His rehabilitation shows perhaps that some rationality has returned to the appointment of ministers, after the Crazy World of Liz Truss. As I wrote in my last column, I found Mark to be honest, straight-talking and competent when we were ministers together in the Home Office.
Yet we cannot assume positive personal characteristics will be enough. Events tend to make the weather rather than ministerial initiatives.
Ministers generally arrive at their department following appointment with some specific objectives they want to achieve. For me, these included everything from the creation of the Local Sustainable Transport Fund thorough to the banning of private sector wheel clamping (which I slipped through when Philip Hammond, who was against the ban, went on holiday).
It is not clear what policy objectives, if any, Mark will have brought to his new role, for transport has never seemed to be one of his priorities as an MP. One has emerged subsequently, namely his commitment to infrastructure investment.
It was interesting for me to note that at the event to celebrate the completion of the Elizabeth Line, where both he and I were present, he used his first public outing as secretary of state to go off his prepared script to talk about new schemes. This was his voice, rather than that of the careful civil servants who will have fashioned his written words.
He observed that while plenty of people find reasons to object to new schemes, very few if any object when they are finished, and the objectors use them just as much as those who supported the scheme do.
He is undoubtedly right to suggest this. I recall when HS1 was first proposed to go through the Kent countryside, all sorts of lurid arguments against the idea appeared. Ashford was going to be ruined. The noise would be horrendous and make life unliveable for people even several miles away. And so on. They were all wrong and I doubt if there is now anybody who thinks it was a mistake to build HS1.
Mark Harper was clearly referring in his unscripted aside not just to the Elizabeth Line but probably also to HS2, which he is on record as supporting, and probably the Northern Powerhouse and East-West rail too. Unfortunately, in my judgement, it might also suggest his commitment to large-scale, pollution-creating, traffic- inducing road schemes.
But back to those external events. Even if he has arrived in office with a list of policies and projects he wants to pursue, he may find that his agenda is largely set for him, and often by matters outside his control.
He will have arrived at the Department for Transport to find a bulging in-tray, at the top of which will have been the lamentably poor service for passengers on the railway, as a result of either ongoing strike action by the unions or the shockingly bad performance of certain train operating companies. Even on the days when there are no strikes, cancellations are at an all-time high and services sporadic.
The new secretary of state has made an encouraging start here, talking calmly and avoiding unnecessary antagonistic comments. It was sensible of him to meet RMT boss Mick Lynch and certainly helped improve relations and so bring a settlement potentially closer.
It is perhaps reckless of me to make predictions in print that might turn out to be hopelessly wrong, but as I write this on the evening of Monday 28th, my reading of the situation is that a deal is much closer with perhaps only the reluctance of the Treasury to give the green light the last stumbling block.
If a deal can be signed off, and signed off in time to enable the planned December strikes to be pulled, that will be seen as a big tick for the new transport secretary. It will also mean, for these must be the terms of any agreement, a decent pay rise for rail workers, and a sweeping away of what used to be called Spanish practices (a term that goes back hundreds of years and which doubtless and understandably Spanish people regard as somewhat pejorative). Both these outcomes would be very welcome.
Also near the top of his in-tray will be a paper on Great British Railways. Is its creation still government policy, is it still seen as the guiding mind of the future, or is the new transport secretary going to pull the emergency communication cord?
A decision on this really cannot be allowed to drag on very much longer. Whether or not the concept established by his predecessor, Grant Shapps, is entirely to his liking, I suspect Mark Harper will take a pragmatic view, both that GBR is already too far down the track to be derailed, and that the last thing the industry needs is more uncertainty. And in any case, there is no obvious Plan B.
These matters should be largely within the control of the transport secretary, but any departmental secretary of state soon finds that their room for manoeuvre on a wide range of issues is limited by the idiosyncrasies of No. 10 and the behemoth that is No. 11.
And on top of that, the Leader of the House, Penny Mordaunt, will hugely influence what legislation is found time for in parliament. The DfT desperately needs a slot for a major transport Bill, primarily to create GBR but also to deal with a whole range of other issues that have been hanging around, including putting in place a licensing regime for e-scooters and pedicabs, and regulating driverless cars. Mark Harper needs to use his influence and elbows to win this slot.
We have not yet had the announcement on rail fares for next year. We used to learn of the increase in August to take effect the following January, but last year the increase slipped into the spring.
This is another flashpoint. Some in government will argue that fares should be held, both to help tackle cost of living increases and in recognition that service on the tracks has been pretty poor. You can see that a big increase, anywhere near inflation, will cause outrage, and I am sure both ministers and officials in the DfT would rather not have to defend this.
The Treasury, however, is more likely to take the view that rail has been heavily supported through Covid and it is time to claw back some of that money. It is the Treasury, not Mark Harper and certainly not Huw Merriman, the new rail minister, who will make that call.
If I were still a DfT minister, I would be pointing out to the Treasury that pushing up fares may actually drive people off the railways and so reduce income to them. By contrast, on the East Coast Main Line, cheap fares from open access newcomer Lumo, which LNER has felt obliged to mirror to a degree, has pushed up passenger numbers way above pre-Covid levels, no mean feat, and so increased income.
It is an argument based on Treasury income that is much more likely to be won rather than anything about the cost of living, and certainly not one pointing out the environmental advantages of rail, which are of little interest to the Treasury.
Equally, the DfT will have its work cut out persuading the chancellor and his officials that all the promised rail improvements should still go ahead, and it will be a test of Mark Harper’s clout to what extent he can stave off the calls for cuts to the rail capital programme.
The Treasury will also hold the cards when it comes to bus funding. The large, indeed unprecedented sum earmarked for the National Bus Strategy for England, announced just before the pandemic, has been whittled down, initially by a big commitment to cycling, then by the use of funds to provide short-term prop-up support to the industry through the pandemic.
We have an extension to the support package, and a £2 bus fare from January, both rushed out in the dying days, no hours, of Grant Shapps and No. 10 transport advisor Andrew Gilligan, which will take us through to the end of March.
It would clearly not be sensible to then have a cliff edge, for that would mean a whole swathe of bus services being withdrawn, which in turn would to a degree render pointless the support that was provided during Covid to keep them operating. Yet is the Treasury, back in mindset terms to cutting spending and balancing the books, prepared to listen to pleas from the transport secretary and his DfT colleagues to keep some sort of safety net in place?
Mark Harper may have some good ideas – we will see – but the test for him, as it always is for transport secretaries, is how far he can get others to ease his passage rather than block his way.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Norman Baker served as transport minister from May 2010 until October 2013. He was Lib Dem MP for Lewes between 1997 and 2015.
This story appears inside the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
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