After weeks of leaks, the chancellor revealed her budget last month. There was good news for transport, but questions remain
Chancellor Rachel Reeves on budget day last month (picture: Simon Dawson / No10 Downing Street)
You can sometimes come across situations which, if written into a situation comedy sketch for TV, would be rejected as simply not credible.
Which takes me to the rail replacement bus service operating once a week between West Ealing and West Ruislip for a train that can no longer operate because the tracks have been torn up to make way for HS2.
Quite clearly, this stretch of line is not coming back, but nobody has bothered to go through the necessary closure procedure, so the rail replacement bus keeps running.
Is this incompetence, carelessness, or simply a casual disregard for the law? I tend to think the last of these, not least because it mirrors what I saw in my own constituency of Lewes.
In that case, the physical demolition of Newhaven Marine station was undertaken despite there being a timetabled 21.23 ‘parliamentary’ service to Lewes on a Tuesday evening. Anyone wanting to catch this unlikely train was in theory offered a taxi to the virtually adjacent Newhaven Harbour station.
Eventually, after I protested about the failure to adhere to the law, the Department for Transport issued a consultation on whether to close the station that had already been demolished. I objected, just to make a point.
Unlike in west London, here the track actually remains and still enables freight trains to reach the quayside of the port, though sadly very few do.
Public consultations on possible closures are sensible and right, but not when the pass has already been sold.
Then there was the introduction about 20 years ago of the Class 377 vehicles to the coastal Southern routes out of London Victoria. Only after the trains arrived was it discovered that the power supply to the line was inadequate for the trains to operate at optimum speed.
Sometimes when matters are working well, someone intervenes to worsen them. I noticed last week that the display boards on the eastbound District and Circle line platform at Victoria which until recently flashed up “Circle Line via Liverpool Street” now instead say “Hammersmith”. That is indeed the ultimate destination of the circle line train, but of course anybody wanting to go from Victoria to Hammersmith should take a district line train bound for Richmond or Ealing Broadway. They would be mad to get there via Liverpool Street and King’s Cross, yet that is what some numpty at London Underground is now encouraging.
Another example of unwarranted change occurred very recently when the ORR decided that the busy 07.00 from Manchester Piccadilly into London, a big earner from peak-fare paying passengers who value its journey time of just under two hours, should henceforth run empty all the way, bar for the staff it was carrying.
The ORR related their decision to capacity and resilience issues, which left many including Network Rail scratching their heads, as the train would still be running and occupying the same train path. Fortunately, having been submerged under an avalanche of ridicule, the ORR backed off and the service will continue.
But it is a more recent and far-reaching farce that has corralled the headlines recently. I refer to the recent budget introduced by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
It used to be a metaphorical hanging offence to reveal details of a budget before the big occasion in the Commons when the chancellor of the day would produce surprise after surprise from the battered budget case.
Back in 1947, the then chancellor Hugh Dalton mentioned key details of his financial plans to a journalist while on his way to make his speech in Parliament, only to find the details in that day’s evening papers before he had a chance to address the House. He resigned in disgrace the next day.
Fast forward to 2025 and the relevant question is which elements of the budget were not leaked in advance. It seems we have a new irregular verb: I brief, you leak, he commits an offence under the Official Secrets Act.
For these were no unauthorised leaks by unhappy officials, but the deliberate testing of public reaction to various ideas by the chancellor and her colleagues.
It was perhaps poetic justice that the chancellor found her budget comprehensively and irresponsibly published online by the Office of Budget Responsibility before she the opportunity to read it out to MPs. Its chair, Richard Hughes, resigned shortly after, though speculation was that the real cause was not this cack-handed leak but the publication the next day of a timeline that implied that the chancellor had not been entirely straight with the economic information she imparted in the weeks running up to Budget Day.
What we really need, of course, is a comprehensive pay-as-you-go scheme for all vehicles
There is no doubt that the country’s economic situation is dire. In October alone, the government borrowed £17.4bn, the highest figure for that month since records began. More than 10% of government expenditure is now devoted to paying down debt. And by 2029, taxes will have reached 38% of GDP, the highest since 1945.
Much of this is down to the toxic inheritance from the Conservatives, and Kemi Badenoch’s shameless outrage at Rachel Reeves really does jar. But Labour itself cannot escape blame either.
For a start, it was absurd ahead of an election to rule out for a five-year period any increase in the three main tax raising streams available to any government. If a week is a long time in politics, as Harold Wilson suggested, then five years is a veritable eon, during which wars, plagues, and heaven knows what else might occur.
The consequence of this saw the chancellor scabble around for a smorgasbord – or dog’s breakfast – of unconnected bits and pieces to make up a £26bn income stream. No clear strategy underpinned this.
Moreover, there is one clear direction the government could follow to help matters considerably, which is to repair the terrible damage done by Brexit to our trade with the EU, not least by re-entering a Customs Union. Lost tax revenue alone is estimated to be a whopping £90bn each year as a result of Brexit, or £250m a day. Perhaps we should put that on the side of a bus.
Even staunch Brexiteers now admit that there have been serious economic impacts from Brexit though some still whistle in the dark and say that sunny uplands are just over the hills. Mañana.
Where does all this leave transport?
One of the Budget elements leaked out early – why? – was a freeze on rail fares until spring 2027. I confess to being taken aback by this welcome news, after years of calling in vain for such a step.
However there is a sting in the tail. The government has only made a pledge in respect of regulated fares, which make up around half those sold.
Unregulated fares include advance tickets, which are the go-to option for long distance travel, saver and promotional tickets, as well as first class fares.
And we have already seen action by state-run LNER to limit cheap off peak fares in the name of simplified ticket options. Expect more of that to come.
It may seem churlish to complain when the government has become the first in decades to freeze any rail fares, but logically they should also cap fares where they now control former franchises, a sizeable bulk of the network with the largest segment, GTR, to follow early in the new year.
In fact, as we know, they effectively control all train operating companies, nationalised or not and could have a comprehensive fares freeze if they wanted one.
Also welcome was the decision – at last – to push up fuel duty for motorists. The cleanest way, and indeed most sensible given the chancellor’s financial black hole, would have been to cancel immediately the “temporary” 5p cut introduced in 2022. Instead, it was announced this would only be tackled from August 2026, which gives the so-called fair fuel lobby plenty of time to campaign for the cut to be kept.
After August 2026, the fuel duty rate will “gradually return” to pre-cut 2022 levels by March 2027. I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.
It was also good to see a higher tax being applied to private jets. These are massively polluting and only available to the very rich, so it is quite right to apply this tax.
We also saw confirmation that the much-trailed charge per mile for electric vehicles is to come in. This again is both overdue and sensible, but I worry that tackling electric vehicles alone, while doing little to discourage petrol and diesel ones, will in the short term depress further the sales of the electric variety.
What we really need, of course, is a comprehensive pay-as-you-go scheme for all vehicles, to replace fuel duty and possibly vehicle excise duty as well, but I suppose that was several steps too far for a chancellor whose main aim seems to be to make sure she is still in place next week.
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.
Transport’s role in the bodge-it budget
by Passenger Transport on Dec 12, 2025 • 3:01 pm No CommentsAfter weeks of leaks, the chancellor revealed her budget last month. There was good news for transport, but questions remain
You can sometimes come across situations which, if written into a situation comedy sketch for TV, would be rejected as simply not credible.
Which takes me to the rail replacement bus service operating once a week between West Ealing and West Ruislip for a train that can no longer operate because the tracks have been torn up to make way for HS2.
Quite clearly, this stretch of line is not coming back, but nobody has bothered to go through the necessary closure procedure, so the rail replacement bus keeps running.
Is this incompetence, carelessness, or simply a casual disregard for the law? I tend to think the last of these, not least because it mirrors what I saw in my own constituency of Lewes.
In that case, the physical demolition of Newhaven Marine station was undertaken despite there being a timetabled 21.23 ‘parliamentary’ service to Lewes on a Tuesday evening. Anyone wanting to catch this unlikely train was in theory offered a taxi to the virtually adjacent Newhaven Harbour station.
Eventually, after I protested about the failure to adhere to the law, the Department for Transport issued a consultation on whether to close the station that had already been demolished. I objected, just to make a point.
Unlike in west London, here the track actually remains and still enables freight trains to reach the quayside of the port, though sadly very few do.
Public consultations on possible closures are sensible and right, but not when the pass has already been sold.
Then there was the introduction about 20 years ago of the Class 377 vehicles to the coastal Southern routes out of London Victoria. Only after the trains arrived was it discovered that the power supply to the line was inadequate for the trains to operate at optimum speed.
Sometimes when matters are working well, someone intervenes to worsen them. I noticed last week that the display boards on the eastbound District and Circle line platform at Victoria which until recently flashed up “Circle Line via Liverpool Street” now instead say “Hammersmith”. That is indeed the ultimate destination of the circle line train, but of course anybody wanting to go from Victoria to Hammersmith should take a district line train bound for Richmond or Ealing Broadway. They would be mad to get there via Liverpool Street and King’s Cross, yet that is what some numpty at London Underground is now encouraging.
Another example of unwarranted change occurred very recently when the ORR decided that the busy 07.00 from Manchester Piccadilly into London, a big earner from peak-fare paying passengers who value its journey time of just under two hours, should henceforth run empty all the way, bar for the staff it was carrying.
The ORR related their decision to capacity and resilience issues, which left many including Network Rail scratching their heads, as the train would still be running and occupying the same train path. Fortunately, having been submerged under an avalanche of ridicule, the ORR backed off and the service will continue.
But it is a more recent and far-reaching farce that has corralled the headlines recently. I refer to the recent budget introduced by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
It used to be a metaphorical hanging offence to reveal details of a budget before the big occasion in the Commons when the chancellor of the day would produce surprise after surprise from the battered budget case.
Back in 1947, the then chancellor Hugh Dalton mentioned key details of his financial plans to a journalist while on his way to make his speech in Parliament, only to find the details in that day’s evening papers before he had a chance to address the House. He resigned in disgrace the next day.
Fast forward to 2025 and the relevant question is which elements of the budget were not leaked in advance. It seems we have a new irregular verb: I brief, you leak, he commits an offence under the Official Secrets Act.
For these were no unauthorised leaks by unhappy officials, but the deliberate testing of public reaction to various ideas by the chancellor and her colleagues.
It was perhaps poetic justice that the chancellor found her budget comprehensively and irresponsibly published online by the Office of Budget Responsibility before she the opportunity to read it out to MPs. Its chair, Richard Hughes, resigned shortly after, though speculation was that the real cause was not this cack-handed leak but the publication the next day of a timeline that implied that the chancellor had not been entirely straight with the economic information she imparted in the weeks running up to Budget Day.
There is no doubt that the country’s economic situation is dire. In October alone, the government borrowed £17.4bn, the highest figure for that month since records began. More than 10% of government expenditure is now devoted to paying down debt. And by 2029, taxes will have reached 38% of GDP, the highest since 1945.
Much of this is down to the toxic inheritance from the Conservatives, and Kemi Badenoch’s shameless outrage at Rachel Reeves really does jar. But Labour itself cannot escape blame either.
For a start, it was absurd ahead of an election to rule out for a five-year period any increase in the three main tax raising streams available to any government. If a week is a long time in politics, as Harold Wilson suggested, then five years is a veritable eon, during which wars, plagues, and heaven knows what else might occur.
The consequence of this saw the chancellor scabble around for a smorgasbord – or dog’s breakfast – of unconnected bits and pieces to make up a £26bn income stream. No clear strategy underpinned this.
Moreover, there is one clear direction the government could follow to help matters considerably, which is to repair the terrible damage done by Brexit to our trade with the EU, not least by re-entering a Customs Union. Lost tax revenue alone is estimated to be a whopping £90bn each year as a result of Brexit, or £250m a day. Perhaps we should put that on the side of a bus.
Even staunch Brexiteers now admit that there have been serious economic impacts from Brexit though some still whistle in the dark and say that sunny uplands are just over the hills. Mañana.
Where does all this leave transport?
One of the Budget elements leaked out early – why? – was a freeze on rail fares until spring 2027. I confess to being taken aback by this welcome news, after years of calling in vain for such a step.
However there is a sting in the tail. The government has only made a pledge in respect of regulated fares, which make up around half those sold.
Unregulated fares include advance tickets, which are the go-to option for long distance travel, saver and promotional tickets, as well as first class fares.
And we have already seen action by state-run LNER to limit cheap off peak fares in the name of simplified ticket options. Expect more of that to come.
It may seem churlish to complain when the government has become the first in decades to freeze any rail fares, but logically they should also cap fares where they now control former franchises, a sizeable bulk of the network with the largest segment, GTR, to follow early in the new year.
In fact, as we know, they effectively control all train operating companies, nationalised or not and could have a comprehensive fares freeze if they wanted one.
Also welcome was the decision – at last – to push up fuel duty for motorists. The cleanest way, and indeed most sensible given the chancellor’s financial black hole, would have been to cancel immediately the “temporary” 5p cut introduced in 2022. Instead, it was announced this would only be tackled from August 2026, which gives the so-called fair fuel lobby plenty of time to campaign for the cut to be kept.
After August 2026, the fuel duty rate will “gradually return” to pre-cut 2022 levels by March 2027. I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.
It was also good to see a higher tax being applied to private jets. These are massively polluting and only available to the very rich, so it is quite right to apply this tax.
We also saw confirmation that the much-trailed charge per mile for electric vehicles is to come in. This again is both overdue and sensible, but I worry that tackling electric vehicles alone, while doing little to discourage petrol and diesel ones, will in the short term depress further the sales of the electric variety.
What we really need, of course, is a comprehensive pay-as-you-go scheme for all vehicles, to replace fuel duty and possibly vehicle excise duty as well, but I suppose that was several steps too far for a chancellor whose main aim seems to be to make sure she is still in place next week.
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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