Former government advisor laments direction of travel over last 20 years and warns that Labour’s policies won’t deliver transformational change

 
Professor David Begg urged Labour to build HS2 to Crewe

 
Former government transport advisor Professor David Begg says the UK is lacking a vision for transforming transport in a way that will deliver essential economic, social and environmental outcomes.

Begg chaired the influential Commission for Integrated Transport after it was established by the Labour government in 1999, which had a remit to hold the government to account on transport policy. As polling day approaches, he does not believe that the Labour Party currently has the policies required to achieve a transformation.

Speaking at last week’s Transport Times conference in London, Transport after the General Election, he said: “I don’t see what they are going to achieve with the policies they have put forward … If Labour wants two terms, I wouldn’t be able to stand here today and tell you what is going to be radically different about Britain in eight years time with two terms of a Labour government.”

He said Labour was focussed on “Level 2” issues like public ownership and control and not “Level 1” issues like price signals.

When was the last time you heard a politician … stand up and say we need to change travel behaviour? We need to make more responsible use of the car. I can’t believe how far we’ve gone back in 20 years. Honestly, I just can’t

“When was the last time you heard a politician … stand up and say we need to change travel behaviour? We need to make more responsible use of the car,” he said. “I can’t believe how far we’ve gone back in 20 years. Honestly, I just can’t.”

Begg urged Labour to build HS2 to Crewe and to link fuel duty to inflation – policies that would give public transport a competitive advantage. “They need to spell out the consequences of motoring being on the cheap side,” he said.

Begg pointed out that it was a Tory chancellor, Ken Clarke, who introduced the fuel duty escalator in the 1990s. He said the policy had been introduced in order to change travel behaviour rather than simply to raise money.

He said: “The truth of the matter is what we do on roads has a huge impact on rail … So when you’ve got a fuel duty escalator and you are not building more roads, and the roads are getting more congested, guess what, trains have got a competitive advantage. Right now trains have got the very opposite of a competitive advantage, price-wise, because motoring is cheap.”

If I was chancellor the first thing I would do is to say that fuel duty automatically increases with inflation – it’s built in

He added: “The best thing you could do to get a shift to electric vehicles is to make petrol and diesel cars more expensive right throughout the country. In fact, if I was chancellor the first thing I would do is to say that fuel duty automatically increases with inflation – it’s built in.”

Assuming that the outcome of the general election is a Labour government, Begg advised the transport sector to make the economic case for investment.

“Those of us who want to influence Labour to be more ambitious on transport have got to dust down all the reports and do new research on how transport is critical to the economy,” he said.

“Is it just a coincidence that the towns and cities in the UK that are least dependent on the car, where there is less modal share for the car, also happen to be the most prosperous? Is that a coincidence? London? Edinburgh? Brighton? Cambridge? Oxford? Manchester is getting there.

“You can’t run a successful economy on high car mode share, unless you are like Los Angeles and you want to devote 80% of land use to moving vehicles.”

 
This article appears in the latest issue of Passenger Transport.

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