Transport Committee
Oral evidence: Strategic transport objectives, HC 84
Wednesday 31 January 2024
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 31 January 2024.
Members present: Iain Stewart (Chair); Jack Brereton; Sara Britcliffe; Fabian Hamilton; Paul Howell; Karl McCartney; Grahame Morris; Mick Whitley.
Questions 68–110
Witnesses
I: Councillor Louise Gittins, Leader, West Cheshire and Chester Council; Paul Miner, Head of Policy and Planning, CPRE, the countryside charity; and Jason Prince, Director, Urban Transport Group.
Written evidence from witnesses:
– CPRE, the countryside charity
Witnesses: Councillor Gittins, Paul Miner and Jason Prince.
Q68 Chair: Welcome to today’s session of the Transport Select Committee. This is our second oral evidence session for our strategic transport objectives inquiry. Before we start, I invite the panel to state their name and organisation for the purposes of our records.
Jason Prince: I am Jason Prince, a director at the Urban Transport Group.
Councillor Gittins: I am Councillor Louise Gittins. I am here representing the Local Government Association, but I am also the leader of Cheshire West and Chester Council.
Paul Miner: Good morning. I am Paul Miner, head of campaigns and policy at CPRE, the countryside charity, formerly known as the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
Q69 Chair: Thank you. Welcome, all. We are grateful for your time this morning. One of the areas we want to explore as part of this inquiry is to look very broadly at the appropriate balance of powers between those set at a national level by central Government, those that are devolved, whether to a devolved Administration or, increasingly, the mayoral combined authorities in England and those that are set at an individual town, borough or city level. I will begin with a very general question to each of you. To what extent do you think we have that balance right, as we stand, and where do you think there could be improvements in the future?
Jason Prince: First, on behalf of our members here today, thank you for inviting me. Particularly over the past five years or so in terms of English devolution, there has definitely been a transition to giving more transport powers, facilitated by the combined authorities, and different levels and iterations of devolution, the latest being level 4 devolution and then Trailblazer. It is clear in the nations—Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—although they are subtly different settlements, particularly Wales and Northern Ireland, that there has definitely been a further move to devolving more responsibility at local level to local decision making.
On the question, do I believe we have got the balance right, I think it is still relatively lumpy and bumpy in what there is across the UK as a whole. I don’t think there is any one place in England between Greater Manchester and the West Midlands. They are probably most aligned. Other areas are coming on board and the powers are slowly transitioning, probably to match those of TfL.
It is not uniform. Overall, there isn’t an overarching strategy for where transport fits into a vision for the UK, which can sometimes make it a little bit difficult. It does not provide clarity or certainty on where we are to support the overall UK economy or the fundamentals. Transport is a supporting element to developing a strong economy, social values and trying to maximise the best. Initially, that is where I would start to answer the question.
Chair: Thank you.
Councillor Gittins: Without repeating what Jason has already said—I agree with all of it—perhaps I can put it into a bit of context. There is inequality around the country on devolved powers. For a long time the LGA has been calling for a baseline of devolved powers so that everybody is the same.
In terms of transport, residents do not see borders. Where we are in Cheshire, Warrington is our sub-region and we don’t have any devolved powers at this particular stage. We are surrounded by Wales, Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester. On connectivity with Wales, for example, we have something like 40,000 residents who cross the border every day and they do not see those borders. If we move to a place, particularly around buses, where we have counties, buses are really important for rural areas. If there was a baseline for devolved powers, transport should be part of that so that each area could have a transport system that was suitable for their own particular area, working with the areas surrounding them.
Chair: Thank you.
Paul Miner: At national level we want to see a much more integrated transport policy, which I am sure we will come on to in later questions. Our overall vision for the future of the countryside, in particular for its transport network, involves a much greater degree of devolution than we have had in the past 30 or 40 years. From our experience, most of the best initiatives that have come on transport policy have tended to come from the local level, in particular in the past from county councils where they were able to take a joined-up approach to development of rural areas.
In the past 30 or 40 years or so, we have seen a worrying disparity between the quality of public transport in large cities and other areas of the country, particularly in London, where there are still strong transport institutions and strong integration with other areas of public policy. It is not just north versus south but urban versus rural. There is a real postcode lottery in the quality of transport networks in rural areas, with some really good practice but some rural areas that have really poor public transport and active travel.
Going forward, we want a robust bus network in rural areas. We want to see more rural railway openings. We support what the Government have been doing in that respect, but we want them to go further. In particular, we need much more integration with the land use planning system and decisions on where new housing development goes. We need to build many more new houses in rural areas, but where we build them makes a huge difference. It is critically important that we see much more integration between where a new housing development takes place in a more rural area and the availability of a robust transport network, with the full range of public transport options and much more encouragement for active travel.
Q70 Chair: Thank you. I want to ask each of you, what should central Government do and what should be devolved, either to the devolved level or the individual city, town or borough level? What policies sit at the right level?
Jason Prince: To go from the top level, if I was to say, “Do we have a vision for what transport will be like in 2040 or 2050?”, I would argue that we do not have a clear vision of where we are trying to get to. I think it is incumbent on the Government to set out what that vision is and what we want transport to be, as part of a lot of other strategies—an industrial strategy, and all the different elements that support a strong, growing economy. At local level, what we have seen, particularly through the experience of our members in Greater Manchester—I know you are hearing evidence from the Mayor later on and from TfN—is some really good practice, and that when you devolve transport powers at local level and combined authority level you can start to make a difference.
For our members particularly, our overall goal is to try to make transport as seamless as possible and to create an integrated transport network. If we really want to get people out of their cars and to move to decarbonisation of the transport sector, we need to start to have that integration. It is very much like the London model. One of the levelling-up missions was, by 2030, to try to get as many areas out of London as close to London as possible. That is admirable and I think the Department has to be congratulated, as well as Government, for some of the things that they have tried to do.
The city region sustainable transport fund is a game changer for delivering accountability. Dovetailed with that, it is great that you can have capital funds and a longer-term view of how we can plan capital spend to create integrated networks, but one of the things our members would also ask for is greater certainty over revenue funding. By March 2025, there is no clarity about what happens to future bus funding. Buses, inherently by their nature, are hyper local, whether it is a city region or a rural area. It is not necessarily just about the powers. We need long-term clarity on funding. If you get that, you are ultimately able to make much better decisions for your constituents.
Chair: Thank you.
Councillor Gittins: Jason keeps saying everything I want to say. To reiterate that from a local government perspective, there needs to be a much more bottom-up feeding into national strategy and the ability of local areas to set their own needs. We all come together over social mobility, the impact of travel on climate emergency, skills, access to jobs and all the things that are really important, but it is the Government’s role to set the vision, and then work closely with us as equal partners on how we are going to deliver it for our residents and—without repeating what I said before—enabling local areas to do it. Our residents and citizens want to be able to get from A to B as easily as possible. I think we are best placed at local level to define what A to B looks like. Certainly from our perspective, the more that we can work with national Government on what it looks like at a local level, the better it will be. I hope that covers the bits that Jason hasn’t covered.
Paul Miner: We need the Government to set a single, overarching strategy for transport. That has been missing for a long time. At present, the Department for Transport has all kinds of different strategies which do not join up with each other. There are also some basic inconsistencies in the overall objectives that the Government are setting for the network. In particular, it is a laudable but unnecessary aim to get towards net zero when, on the other hand, there are other objectives that are more about trying to encourage economic growth through, for example, reinforcing the road network.
We need an overarching and consistent national strategy, and it needs much more of a spatial element. At the moment, we do not have links between transport investment and where new housing growth is going to take place. You will be very aware, for example, of what the Government have been looking to do recently in the Oxford-Cambridge arc. There has not been a clear strategy that has come forward for development of the arc. Much more could have been done to set an integrated and transparent strategy for that area.
In what happens at local level, we support what has been happing in recent years in allowing local authorities to set bus service improvement plans. We believe that local authorities can do more to make franchising work at the local level. It has worked well overall in London. Cornwall Council is looking to making it work well in a rural context.
We think that while national Government should set overall priorities for the strategic rail network, particularly for transport out of London and the regions, there is also an important role for local authorities to have influence over the local rail network. Historically, we have seen that where local authorities have had that influence and sought to maintain rail corridors and rail services, the rail service is now in a much better place than where local authorities have not taken that interest.
Q71 Chair: I want to pick up on that point. Forgive me, I am going to indulge the Chair’s prerogative and use my local example. You referenced the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge corridor, which is already important but will be increasingly important. Milton Keynes is on the strategic west coast main line. We have a big commuter population into London. We have a smaller, but still significant, commuter population to and from the west midlands. All of these, if we devolve, are controlled by different authorities. How do we reconcile those competing interests in a strategic plan? Is that where central Government step in?
Paul Miner: We think that central Government can play a role in setting a transparent strategy for where central investment goes. Substantial amounts of investment have gone into the Oxford-Cambridge arc area in the past 10 or 15 years, particularly through the housing infrastructure fund, for example. From our point of view, we recognise that there is an urgent need to invest in more affordable housing in Oxford, Cambridge and Milton Keynes, as well as improving transport links between them. We supported East West Rail, for example. We accept the need for a transparent and accountable public strategy for that area.
It is important to set it within the context of levelling up, so that overall the country is confident that there is a fair spread of investment between the Oxford-Cambridge area and in areas further in the midlands and in the north of England, which could benefit from investment and where universities and local authorities are looking for better connectivity between cities, particularly between Manchester and Leeds or Liverpool and Manchester. There is a role for national strategies, but it has to be seen as fair between regions as a whole and within the context of levelling up.
Q72 Chair: I appreciate that, but who co-ordinates the different authorities who, potentially, might not have the same objectives in mind?
Councillor Gittins: It is really interesting. I sit on Transport for the North. I know you have a session on that later. As a statutory adviser for Government, we have come together with a common vision about what we want for the north. There are seven other STBs that are in shadow format. Is there any role that they can play in the future? For example, our big rail network is Northern and TransPennine Express. We now oversee those through the elected politicians on Transport for the North.
If you can bring people together with a common vision, that is the secret. The Government need to set the vision and have an overarching strategy, with a structure that local authorities can feed into. On sub-regional working, we work very closely with Liverpool city region and with GM. It is about encouraging people to work together. Intertwined through all of that are the DFT and Network Rail. We need to look at the whole structure and how it could operate in a different way.
Q73 Chair: Briefly, before I pass over to colleagues, Mr Prince.
Jason Prince: I work from the premise that there is already really good collaboration going on. All our members are combined authorities or different nations. There is a significant amount of collaboration and learning between our members organically, as constituent combined authorities and local authorities. It is important to remember that we use the words “mayoral combined authority”, but local authorities constitute them, and they have a history and a level of learning between them that is really important.
There is a role for organisations like TfN at STB level to help bring the regional perspective and to facilitate and be a conduit for dialogue. There is something really important in that. Ultimately, though, devolution allows greater flexibility in decision making for local people. Sometimes what may be successful or work in Greater Manchester may not necessarily be the solution everywhere. I acknowledge that it may not sometimes come across that way or be perceived as such.
One final thing is about Government. Colleagues in the Department are working very hard and we need to support Government in thinking about place. Places do not respect local authority boundaries sometimes. The cultures embedded within departmental working need to think about place rather than just about transport. There are already mechanisms to do that, particularly through what we have done on levelling up in DLUHC. The DFT is working very closely to try to facilitate the outcome for a place rather than the outcome for a mode. If we can start to embed that culture, we will get better transport outcomes.
Chair: I will come back at the end, but I need to move to my colleagues.
Q74 Grahame Morris: Thanks Chair. You’ve touched on or covered some of the questions that I wanted to ask. My questions were about the effectiveness of devolution, and how we can improve on it.
Perhaps I might go back to an answer that Councillor Louise Gittins gave a little earlier. It is a bit of a bugbear with me in relation to the contest or the levelling up of rural and urban areas. You are part of Transport for the North. I have been lobbying since I was elected for improved rail services for my constituency. We have two railway stations. We have one rail service an hour, which most often consists of two carriages. It is so full by the time it gets to the stations in my constituency that people can’t get on.
Northern say they do not have the rolling stock capacity to put four carriages on. They say it is not possible to run a more frequent service. We have got them to increase the frequency, with an additional train every two hours, but it is not going to stop at the stations in Horden and Seaham because of pressure from the people in the cities who want to improve connectivity between Middlesbrough and Newcastle. Do people who live in non-urban areas figure in the considerations when priorities are being drawn up? Surely, they have a right to access economic opportunities, health, leisure and so on.
Councillor Gittins: I have some statistics about journeys; 25% of journeys are under a mile, and 71% are under five miles. Most people use transport for local connections, and it is really important to bear that in mind. There are the big intercity connections, where people want to get to work quickly, or for whatever reason. There is moving around and the intermodal—getting the bus to the station, going one stop, getting the bus, bike or whatever on the other side. It is how you balance them.
We have not talked about freight yet. There are also freight trains. We want to get freight off the roads to help with our climate net zero, but how are we going to do that? The lines are too congested at the moment. There is a whole range of things that need to be considered, and the actual infrastructure is one of them. I understand about rolling stock; we need more loud voices so that we balance the city areas and the non-city areas. I hope that I am quite a loud voice for that. Rolling stock takes years to come to fruition. There needs to be work at pace to get things moving, literally.
Q75 Grahame Morris: We have taken that issue up with Transport Ministers as well, in relation to rolling stock orders.
Mr Prince, I was interested in what you said about the city regions and the elected mayoralties, and the integrated transport funds being a success. In fact, we had the Roads Minister here last week who mentioned some particular schemes in the north-east. How successful do you think the Government’s programme of transport devolution has been? If you were giving it a score out of 10, what would it be? What areas could be improved?
Jason Prince: If there is a strategy that I am very clear that the Government are pursuing around transport, I would say it is transport devolution. I wouldn’t say that there is a strategy for what the transport vision is for 2040-50, but it is very clear what the Government and Ministers have done around wanting to help give greater powers to devolved areas. I think that is testament to the Mayor, and I know that Mayor Andy Burnham will be on after this session.
I think the strategy has been successful. We have to acknowledge the progress that the Government have made. The latest situation of devolution deals before Christmas is beginning to give areas those powers. What does the outcome look like? If you look at the outcome in Greater Manchester, it has the Bee Network. Arguably, the Bee Network has come alive, and a fundamental part of the Bee Network was the legislation around buses—the 2017 Bus Services Act.
If you are asking me the earlier question about what powers would enable other areas to support the Bus Services Act, I would say remove the requirement for an SOS to grant areas to go to franchising. That is a simple legislative change that can be done. When you are looking at what has been achieved by the powers that have been passed down, the Bee Network shows that there is progress, but only Greater Manchester and West Midlands are trailblazers. Work is going on to try to bring the other areas up. On the scorecard, if you are going to push for a number, I would say about six or seven out of 10 on wanting to work and devolve.
Q76 Grahame Morris: What about the strategic vision post 2025? None.
Jason Prince: The Government should be commended. I think these things were mentioned; I could list them, and I am sure the Committee know this, but there are a number of different modal strategies. There is the bus back better strategy, which was 2021. There is the IRP, the integrated rail plan. Modal strategies are great in the round sense for merit. Are we all clear around the table about which ones are alive or dead? I am not clear about which ones are being pursued, but it comes back to my core point. Transport is not just about moving people from A to B. Transport is one of the core foundational elements if you want a growing economy and you want to support UK plc. At the moment, without an industrial strategy—I think we had a plan for growth a Prime Minister ago—and without some of those core overarching visions, it is quite hard to think how we are going to benchmark where we are moving to, and what the clarity and certainty of policy is for transport. On balance, with city regions and devolutions, the Government must be commended for the progress that they have made in helping to support city regions and give further powers.
Q77 Grahame Morris: A very diplomatic answer. Thank you very much. I want to ask Councillor Gittins and Mr Miner one more question about rural areas. In fact, Jason Prince touched on it when he said that Manchester and the West Midlands are forging ahead and trailblazing with bus franchising. Do you think one of the reasons why the rural areas are not as well served, particularly with bus services, is their inability or unwillingness to look at opportunities that are presented, like bus franchising? I will start with Mr Miner first because I haven’t asked him anything yet.
Paul Miner: Thank you. There are one or two rural areas that are taking forward bus franchising, in particular Cornwall, which has set up the Transport for Cornwall partnership. It is an advanced franchising deal, with a franchise to Plymouth Citybus, Arriva, for all supported bus services in the county. From what we can see, it looks like a model of good practice that other rural authorities could follow.
Going back to what I was saying earlier, there seems to be a real postcode lottery in rural areas between the ones, like Cornwall, that are doing it well and those where, in recent years, the local authority simply has not taken enough interest. If you look at the contrast between Cornwall, where there is an integrated network and integrated ticketing, and Somerset, where there are none of those things and where the bus network is really bad—every time I see it, it gets worse—there is a real lesson that can be learnt.
It is interesting to compare the Welsh Government example, where they have set up Transport for Wales. There is a good, integrated approach with West of England. The West of England Mayor, Dan Norris, has really good ambitions for the future of transport there, but the combined authority there still lacks the capacity to get things like the reopening of the rail line to Portishead off the ground.
Q78 Grahame Morris: I am conscious of the time. Councillor Gittins, do you have any particular thoughts on that?
Councillor Gittins: Yes. In the past it has been a bit of a postcode lottery. We have had to bid into different pots of money and not everyone has been successful. Rather than having that blanket approach and the baseline that I talked about before, it has been quite random. Cornwall has done well because they are well on the route to devolution. The point you made about the interaction with other countries is really important. We work very closely in our area with Transport for Wales. They have devised a North Wales metro, which is really exciting. It is multimodal and will take people around. It is about growth and growing the economy. We also have to remember other reasons, such as health inequalities. Transport for the North has done a great piece of work about people who are socially excluded from transport. There are a lot of things that still need to happen. We need a baseline so that everyone is equal and can get on and franchise their own buses.
Chair: We will come to Paul in a minute on funding, but Mick wants to ask a supplementary.
Q79 Mick Whitley: Thanks, Chair. Louise, approximately 30,000 people cross the Wales-English border every day for work, including a large number of my constituents. You have been quite vocal about the need to improve transport connectivity in the Mersey Bay area, which obviously encompasses my constituency of Birkenhead and much of the Cheshire West and Chester Council, as well as north-east Wales.
Public transport services in the region are overseen by a range of different bodies in the region, including various local authorities, economic partnerships and the Welsh Government. Building on the point that has just been raised, how big a barrier is insufficient co-operation to improving cross-border transport connectivity in the Mersey Bay area and across the UK?
Councillor Gittins: Speaking on behalf of myself and not local government—because I can only comment on that area—there is a lot of close working at local level. I don’t see the same at national level. I think it is important that the Welsh Government and the UK Government work closely together. Certainly, if you have the will, there is a way. If you have passion and drive, you can bring people together with a common vision to make a difference. We hope that we are doing that.
The big sticking plaster is the lack of devolved powers in our particular area, which makes us—
Q80 Mick Whitley: The reason I asked the question is that, for example, the likes of the Wrexham to Bidston line are underused and under-capitalised.
Councillor Gittins: Having Network Rail on board, they have now worked with us and identified it as an area of congested travel, or whatever the terminology is. It is slowly improving, but these things take time. There are a lot of pieces in the jigsaw that you need to bring together.
Q81 Karl McCartney: I am not picking on you, Louise; it is localities. Picking up from what my colleague Mick just said representing Birkenhead, I lived in Little Neston and Neston, so I am going to ask about that line. In the last 10 to 15 years, has that line improved its links with local buses? It has been a problem for years, 30-odd years ago when I was still living at home. Has it improved or not? That also includes Hooton, where you would get trains arriving from either Chester or Liverpool, and the bus went five minutes before the train arrived.
Councillor Gittins: I don’t have specific details, but I can tell you that the 272 that connects Neston to Ellesmere Port stops at Hooton station. It arrives just before the train arrives. I have to drive to Hooton station. The Wrexham to Bidston line also has bus connectivity. The reliability of that service is slowly improving. The Merseyrail system is a fantastic example of where local control makes a difference to the rail service. There are brand-new beautiful trains that were designed by the population. They have a real stake in that rail service, and every train is packed. It is fantastic.
Q82 Karl McCartney: Is Deeside well served, in the fact that that has flourished in the last two or three decades?
Councillor Gittins: We have put in joint levelling-up bids. Flintshire led on it. It was supported by Liverpool City Region, Cheshire and Warrington LEP and the councils. We put a levelling-up bid in twice for a station at Deeside, but we have not been successful.
Priorities that are identified at local levels are not always being listened to. It is all very well somebody in Whitehall—apologies—looking at a map of the country and thinking, “Oh well, we think something should happen there,” but it needs to be bottom-up, collaborative working to make sure that we get the infrastructure. Deeside station is a great example of that.
Q83 Karl McCartney: Let’s hope the word that is missing so far is “yet”. “There is no station yet.”
Councillor Gittins: Yes.
Q84 Paul Howell: There are a number of things I want to pick up on. Transport for the North covers from the Manchester and Liverpool area all the way to the Scottish borders. It is an absolutely huge area. The urban needs of Manchester and the rural needs of places like Sedgefield, and Easington, which my colleague Grahame Morris represents, are completely different. It has been touched on already. My questions are about how effective the current transport funding system is. I want to give you some context with a couple of issues. We all go parochial on this, but the things I feel aren’t getting done are where the barriers hit us.
In Sedgefield, my constituency, about 40% of the constituency crosses and sits in the Tees Valley Combined Authority. Therefore, we see the things that are happening there with demand-responsive transport. There is some great energy going on there. The top half of my constituency sits in the County of Durham, which is going to be part of the new North East Combined Authority, when it eventually gets there in May. I know that there are various funding streams, but at the moment it seems that we remain almost like a forgotten child in terms of where things are happening and what it is.
One of the pressures on local government, having sat in that space before I came to this place, is funding. The funding that goes into local authorities is statutory and non-statutory. Transport is not statutory. In Durham, as a county, it has dropped from 14.6 million miles of buses to 11.9, an 18% drop in bus service provision. The LA support that went into that has also dropped, from 2.1 to 1.9. What is happening is that the services are not hitting the villages that need them most. I think Mr Prince mentioned social mobility, or it might have been you, Councillor Gittins. It is the importance of getting funding, to get through to those sorts of places, and not to have almost a mirror image of London in the north. In the north we all think about London getting all the funding for transport. In parts of the north, we think it is going to Manchester and the corridor across. It is how we balance those sorts of funding things.
I have a further point on the crossover of authorities. I have a tremendous science park in Sedgefield. It attracts students, the people who are going to get the jobs, from the universities in Newcastle. That is a different authority. It has different links in terms of how the support comes together and how you join the pieces together, so I want to ask this question. How effective is the current transport funding system at a local and regional government level?
Councillor Gittins: You talked about statutory and non-statutory. You are probably all aware of the huge pressures currently on local government around children’s and adults’ homelessness and SEND services. Unfortunately, and I don’t want to be party political, we have had 14 years of cutbacks to our budget. That rising cost has meant that we have had to look at non-statutory services, and they have suffered as a result of having to spend a huge amount of money.
The other side of that is that the wealth of knowledge that used to be in the transport department of a local authority has dwindled down and down. Not only is it about funding, it is about knowledge and expertise. Until we can resolve the issue around, in particular, children’s and adults’ social care, the non-statutory services are going to suffer as a result of—
Q85 Paul Howell: I don’t want to get into the debate between different things. It is more about whether an element of the transport cost should also be a statutory service.
Councillor Gittins: What I was going to say is that with devolved powers has to come funding. It is almost like there needs to be some seed funding to get things going. It was the same way with the Bee Network in Manchester. Eventually, everything crossed, that will stand on its own two feet. I think there needs to be money that comes down to local level, as well as the powers to be able to do something.
Q86 Paul Howell: Is there a thought also about the actual prioritisation of where money is spent in terms of social benefit as opposed to the number of people who benefit? Money gravitates to Manchester compared to the urban areas because there are more people in Manchester, or Liverpool. I am using Manchester as an urban centre, not as a specific. In terms of any economic model, money spent in the urban centres will get more payback compared to servicing the villages of Trimdon, Easington or wherever. How do you balance that?
Councillor Gittins: It is difficult. Going back to the work that Transport for the North did around social exclusion to transport, the biggest areas are areas of deprivation, which tend to be in urban areas and rural areas, so there is a need right across the board.
I don’t think we should be pitching communities against each other and saying, “Perhaps you’re more important.” We need a system that works for everybody. In urban areas there is higher demand for services. I know that, when I look at my bus services, there are only a few people who use them. We have tried various ways of putting on different short services and trialling things, but they don’t get used. Having said that, we have a rural transport bus that operates around a certain part, and has good patronage, but we designed the route around the needs of the residents. The numbers using that are quite interesting. That is a pilot that we are doing. Local areas are best able to say where their transport needs are. They need to have the powers and the money to be able to do that.
Q87 Paul Howell: I am going to throw in another point. Mr Prince, part of this is where the funding comes from. I want to pick up on the advantages or disadvantages of competitive bidding for transport funding.
Jason Prince: Competitive bidding takes a lot of time, and when you get nothing it is very demoralising. There has to be a better way to support areas where you want to deliver positive transport outcomes.
Q88 Paul Howell: Do you have any proposals?
Jason Prince: To come back to an earlier point, moving to single-pot settlements, where transport is part of that, is really important. There should be clarity on long-term strategy. To go back to a comment earlier on, the CRSTS is a great model. There is now a CRSTS2 and Network North even suggested CRSTS3, which is 2033-34. That is a bit of long-term clarity. It is okay thinking, “We’re going to use capital spend to plan a transport network,” but then you need to think about how the hell we’re going to fund it. When you cannot look beyond a 2025 horizon around bus services, it is a significant challenge.
To come back to what Mr Morris said earlier, Greater Manchester is following franchising. West Midlands actually has an enhanced partnership. In different areas there will be different things that will work. What we and our members ask for is clarity and certainty. Clarity gives you the ability to plan. Certainty gives you the foresight to invest. When you are delivering transport, there is always going to be a mixed market of operators working with local transport authorities. If you want to bring operators to the market, whether bus operators or whatever, they also need to believe that it is an investable proposition for them.
Q89 Paul Howell: Anyone who has sat in local government would want long-term funding plans, but I think it is even more relevant in the transport world because of the investment that is needed. Does that make sense?
Jason Prince: Yes.
Q90 Paul Howell: I will move on slightly, as I know my colleagues will probably follow on from me on this, and develop the question about the way that the Government’s approach to transport policy is sometimes perceived to be too siloed. In terms of the subjects that we have been talking about, do you agree with that comment? How do you think we should be addressing the more intermodal sort of assessment?
Jason Prince: As I said, the whole list of strategies that the Government have brought forward are great on their own merits. Sometimes part of it is not necessarily the things the Government say. It is also the culture, not necessarily in the Government but in Whitehall and Departments. This is where devolution has started to shake things up. In DLUHC, Minister Gove has been very clear on what he wants to deliver for levelling up. Really pushing that forward and embedding transport as an aspiration within the levelling-up missions is something to be positive and congratulated.
You will have the Mayor, and I am sure you have read it in other evidence. People think about place. I think about place. I work and live in Manchester, but I commute to Leeds. I go across different combined authorities in different areas, both rural and metropolitan, so I completely get some of the issues but, ultimately, I live in the north and I want the best connectivity for the north. We should think about what we want as place outcomes and get the Department to do that.
Some of the work over the last couple of years that officials in the Department have been doing—the teams working with devolved areas to try to find a better way to think about place—should be commended. Hopefully, we can continue to push that envelope forward and embed that culture. Think about the place, not just about modes. Modes are important. Maximising the modes is really important, but let’s think about spatial strategy. The London plan was a really good example of how you can do place making, what you need to do and what you want to aspire to.
Q91 Paul Howell: Local MPs always think about our place, and the specific places there, so we naturally come from that place. Mr Miner, I think you are indicating that you would like to say something.
Paul Miner: We definitely think there is lack of integration between current Government policy strategies. It would be very beneficial if, in future, we had a single transport strategy to which individual schemes refer. A big problem that we have seen more recently is that a number of road schemes that have come forward through various road investment strategies have often been justified on the basis of fairly simple cost-benefit analyses or looking at very simple calculations of savings in travel time, but they have not referred to overarching strategic objectives. Our view is that if there was more integrated appraisal of road-building schemes, in particular, the value for money of those schemes would be much more questionable.
Conversely, a lot of active travel schemes and getting more integrated bus networks tend to perform poorly in the methods of transport appraisal that the Department for Transport currently uses. It is important that those methods of appraisal are looked at again, and that we move to what we call a vision and validate approach. We need a new vision for transport when we are in a climate emergency and a cost of living crisis. If we have schemes that are justified in terms of a new vision, we think that things like improving rural bus networks and getting better investment in active travel will score much more highly and be much more prioritised, as indeed we see in Scotland, Wales and London.
Q92 Sara Britcliffe: Coming back to Paul’s question about the transport policy at the top being too siloed, how have local and regional authorities sought to fix that problem themselves when that has been the case?
Jason Prince: That is a really good question. Greater Manchester has a 2040 transport strategy. It is a five-year delivery plan that is publicly accountable. That is one mechanism. Our local areas are developing transport strategies which go into 2030-40. One thing hindering us at the minute—if there was an ask—is that our LTAs are still looking for LTP guidance to be issued. I think it was recently updated. I don’t think there is any clarity on when that is coming out yet. That is an ask I have just put on record. That would be helpful.
In local areas, there is some planning going on. That is a good thing. Are you Hyndburn? Yes. I know Lancashire well. Some of those also account for travel to work areas, and things like that. I am sure that Councillor Gittins knows that a good amount of planning is happening at local level. It is the Government who can offer greater clarity at national level of what we want UK plc to achieve. There is a lot of good learning in the nations. Wales has a transport strategy, which has a five-year, fully accountable delivery plan. Scotland has a transport strategy with some clear things; the Government there have set some clear targets. We are on the way; we are on a journey. At local level there are encouraging and exciting aspirations, particularly from our members.
Q93 Sara Britcliffe: I want to go back to the point on accountability. We talked about the one-pot funding settlement and moving away from competitive bidding. Where, then, would be the accountability to make sure it fits in with the overall plan for the north, if you are taking away the powers for the Government to say, “Actually, that area is receiving it because it’s a very good bid”?
Jason Prince: That is a really good question. Ultimately, this is public money and there has to be a level of accountability at national level. You can then look at the role of STBs in ensuring regional accountability for outcomes. Ultimately, if you are giving single-pot settlements to urban areas, accountability will rest with local MPs. In the Trailblazer deals for West Mids and Greater Manchester, there are accountability sessions. A mechanism is being explored and built in so that, if there is money being given, how is that accountable to national Government and what is the relationship. I know that those level 4 Trailblazer deals are exploring what that looks like. What the outcome will be is currently in gestation at the moment.
Q94 Sara Britcliffe: Would you be able to give us any idea of what the thinking about accountability would look like?
Jason Prince: As I sit here now, I am more than happy to follow up, if that would be helpful, about where they currently are. I know that you have the Mayor coming later, so he may be able to answer better about exactly where they are. I think that very question was a key, fundamental part of the Trailblazer deals. How would you ensure accountability when you are distributing public money at national level and giving it down to local structures?
Q95 Chair: It would be very helpful if you could provide us with any further information on that.
Jason Prince: I would be more than happy to.
Paul Miner: From what we have seen, there is a critical difference between London, Wales and Scotland on the one hand, where there is an elected assembly. The London Assembly, in particular, is really important in terms of accountability and policy learning because it has select committees or specialist committees like this House. On the other hand, there are places like the Oxford-Cambridge arc, where we found it really difficult to engage, because there were different structures for different policy areas. There was one strategy for housing growth. There was a leaders’ board for housing growth. There was a board for transport and there was a board for economic development. It was very hard to know where you went to, or who was accountable for what happened in the Oxford-Cambridge arc.
If you want to have those kinds of regional growth strategies in the future, it is important that you have a single holistic strategy and a single point of accountability for it. I don’t think it can just be a Metro Mayor on their own. You need some kind of supporting committee, whether it is a Committee of the House of Commons or a committee of elected members at local level. It is important that you have that kind of committee support.
Q96 Sara Britcliffe: What would you like to see included in the local transport plans?
Councillor Gittins: I will come in because we are actually refreshing ours at the moment in Cheshire West. Local transport plans need to be around the needs of local communities, so we have engaged extensively with our local communities and businesses to understand what those needs are. Transport is a means to an end rather than an end in itself. What are we trying to achieve? Going back to some of the comments, it is almost like a golden thread. Whether it is improving health outcomes, getting people into jobs or tackling social exclusion, what is the purpose of your transport system in a local area?
There is guidance for that, but it has to be, “What are our local communities and businesses telling us? What is the bigger picture outside our own region? What are the connections that we need to make there?” All local authorities have local transport plans. Some are at different levels than others. It is how those local transport plans start to feed into the bigger picture. Rather than just having individual ones, how does that fit into the sub-region, the greater region there? Certainly, on Transport for the North, our officers in each of the constituent councils and mayoral authorities work together as a team around that. I think the accountability is really interesting. Ultimately, we are accountable to our constituents at the ballot box, but there are structures in place. Transport for the North has a scrutiny committee. It has an audit and governance committee that scrutinises and looks at governance.
At local level, there are structures that can be put in place. The Greater Manchester Combined Authority will have a scrutiny committee that will scrutinise the work that they are doing. It is about mapping what is already there rather than reinventing the wheel. Certainly, from the LGA perspective, we could perhaps help with that and put in some written evidence, if it would be useful.
Jason Prince: To reiterate the point, all our LTAs are looking for LTP guidance to be issued. LTP guidance is really important when you are looking to unlock future funding and what your ultimate plans are. That is something that it would be really helpful for our local areas to get guidance on, so that we can start to develop LTPs. I think it was updated around climate commitments and things like that. If that is an ask, it is an ask.
Chair: Noted. Thank you.
Sara Britcliffe: I am conscious of the time, Chair. Do you want me to continue?
Chair: I will move to Jack. If there is still time at the end, we can come back.
Q97 Jack Brereton: I want to talk a little bit more about how Government make those assessments when they are looking at investing in transport. Mr Miner, you have already mentioned the appraisal process and some of the potential deficiencies of that. Do you think that also means that certain parts of the country are more likely to be favoured than others, when we are considering transport investment?
Paul Miner: Yes, there is a definite danger that if you have an appraisal system that is focused too much on very simple economic cost-benefit analyses and on very simple savings in travel time, you are likely to favour parts of the country that are already economically buoyant or already have high levels of economic growth. That is why we think there is a need for substantial changes to be made to the transport appraisal process.
In terms of individual schemes, we have been concerned that the current process tends to underestimate the costs of road building as well as overestimating the benefits. On some schemes we have seen, our local representatives have pointed out that the cost of running a road through a particular landscape have often been underestimated. There are a number of other points as well about optimism that a scheme can be delivered much more quickly than is actually the case in practice. We evaluated the Highways England post-opening evaluations, or POPEs, of road-building schemes. A consistent picture is emerging that often the damage that had been caused to the countryside and to the environment was much higher than had been considered before the scheme was given consent.
Q98 Jack Brereton: Would you agree with that, Mr Prince? Do you think that there are issues in terms of assessing future growth potential from a scheme that is not necessarily effectively captured, where we don’t have the level of established transport systems that they do, for example, in London? In areas of the country where they don’t have that base in terms of how we can make those sorts of assessments, it is more difficult, isn’t it, to make them and understand what the growth potential of a particular transport investment might be?
Jason Prince: I think it is. It is definitely a challenge. I know Stoke well. I used to live down the road from Stoke. The cost-benefit analysis and BCRs can sometimes go against areas where there isn’t an agglomeration of urban density because they are overwhelmingly economic. That is the overall metric. It should be noted, though, that the Treasury updated the Green Book in 2022. They have included guidance about wellbeing, which is a positive.
Q99 Jack Brereton: I was going to ask you about that. Do you think the updates made to the Treasury Green Book have been effective, or are there further things that need to be done to take things further?
Jason Prince: I would not like to say definitively whether they have been effective or not. What needs to go hand in hand with updates is culture. Institutional culture is as important as updating text in the Green Book, fundamentally. Culture will change over time. It is positive, and it is a recognition that it has been updated to account much more for trying to change the mentality of, “What is the BCR and is it one above or one below?” to, “What is the outcome that we want to achieve for a place?”
I won’t bore the Committee, but there was research done. I think Eddington did some work in 2006 on BCRs, with a list of what was below one, what got approved and what did not. To coin a transport phrase, we are on a journey and there is greater recognition. We should all welcome the Green Book update in 2022, but time will tell how effective it will be in helping places that don’t have the density and agglomeration of London or GM, but are more like towns and cities such as Stoke, which I know well. How will they be recognised, and will they benefit from that sort of change in balance?
Q100 Jack Brereton: How can we assess those more strategic issues better? Like you say, it is very easy to do a BCR calculation and come up with a nice figure. We always like a figure to put to something, but the other more subjective issues are not as easy to calculate or assess and come up with a figure that we can put on their benefits. How can we capture them in a similar way, and give similar weighting to the other issues that we cannot put a numerical value to?
Jason Prince: I am not going to claim that I am an economist, but I would say that you can look at what is happening in other nations. In their 2040 strategy Wales have implemented a sustainable hierarchy and how they appraise particular projects. There are models in other nations of the UK where some learning could be applied. I am more than happy to send the 2024 strategy. When I was reading and preparing for the Committee, I hadn’t realised what positive work was happening in other nations of the UK in terms of how to capture what you could argue are almost intangible benefits, but which really matter in delivering place outcomes. I can forward that, if that is helpful.
Chair: Yes please.
Q101 Jack Brereton: Councillor Gittins, you were obviously agreeing with a lot of that. Do you feel that the Treasury Green Book needs to be further assessed so that there can be more focus on areas like yours and on my area in Stoke-on-Trent, and other parts of the country where we don’t necessarily have as much established public transport network and which sometimes get disincentivised and disadvantaged when it comes to the allocating of funding?
Councillor Gittins: Building on what Jason said, it is about something that looks at metrics other than just the economic benefits. What are the benefits to the people who live there? What are the health benefits? We have health inequalities. Does it contribute towards that? How does it contribute towards net zero? There are lots of things that you can look at. Certainly, I can go back to the LGA and see if we have done any work around that. I don’t have the detail, but there might be something that we could put in. Certainly, learning from other countries would be really useful.
Q102 Jack Brereton: In terms of balancing those issues, obviously a lot of weighting has traditionally been on the economic factors. Do you think there should be more weighting given to those other issues?
Councillor Gittins: There should be a balance of the other issues as well. If you want to grow the economy, there are other things that you need to address. Maybe there is a range of different things that could be looked at. What that could look like is probably quite a nice line of inquiry, actually.
Q103 Jack Brereton: Do you want to comment, Mr Miner?
Paul Miner: Very briefly, if I may. Our perception is that the revised Green Book guidance still isn’t really filtering through into assessments of major transport schemes.
Q104 Jack Brereton: You are saying it is not really filtering through.
Paul Miner: It doesn’t seem to us to be, no. It still seems to be based on very old—
Q105 Jack Brereton: As Mr Prince said, do you think that is a cultural issue or are there more fundamental issues and changes that need to be made?
Paul Miner: The more fundamental change that is needed goes back to our original point. You need an overarching transport strategy that has a clear sense of priorities in it, and is also directed towards addressing issues like the climate emergency and the cost of living crisis.
Q106 Jack Brereton: Do you think the issue is that it is just easier to measure economic issues and put a figure on them, whereas other factors such as environmental and social issues, and levelling up the country, are not as easy to measure?
Paul Miner: That is something that we have observed over time as well. We would agree with that point. Again, going back to what I said earlier, there is also the issue that the environmental impacts of schemes are often not properly or comprehensively assessed. It is not just road building. We have also seen it, arguably, with HS2 for example.
Jack Brereton: Yes, quite. Thank you.
Q107 Fabian Hamilton: I know that we are very short of time, so I will be quite brief. Jason, I am delighted that you go from Manchester to Leeds every day. I hope you have more luck than I did when I last tried to travel from Manchester to Leeds. It is not the easiest of journeys.
My question relates to the governance of strategic transport. That is what we are all about really, in a way. A few weeks ago I asked the Secretary of State about the city of Leeds being the largest city in Europe without a rail-based public transport system. He retorted, quite correctly, that £2.5 billion is being invested in West Yorkshire and that my constituents would hugely benefit from the rail investment, as well as the bus investment.
Bus investment is fine, but two minutes’ research would have revealed to the Secretary of State, or his civil servants, that there are no railways in north-east Leeds at all, and that although my constituents might benefit when they leave the constituency, they will not benefit in the constituency itself because we have no railways and no stations.
My question really though is about how joined up the governance is. I found out by chance about the investment. I am glad that Tracy Brabin, the Mayor of the Combined Authority, is going to have that money and make the investments. I am sure she will want to consult with everybody concerned. Should MPs and councillors be more involved in strategic transport priorities and local transport priorities? I don’t get that sense in Leeds and West Yorkshire at the moment. That is no criticism of our brilliant Mayor—she is really excellent—but it is more of a criticism of the lack of joined-up governance. Could you briefly comment before we move to the area of Greater Manchester?
Jason Prince: Leeds is a great city. I went to uni there many moons ago. Fundamentally, we come back to Leeds as a mayoral combined authority, but it is the constituent councils that are part of that authority. Councillor Hinchcliffe is the transport lead for West Yorkshire.
Let’s take one step back. You could say that we are still relatively early in the journey to move to the devolved model of MCAs. I think it was 2017. Governance structures are evolving, and I have confidence that at a local level they are establishing themselves. Each one must be slightly different, but for me there needs to be a strong connection between local councillors and MCAs. Councillor Gittins will probably speak more strongly on this.
I think you are right in that, from experience, MPs are there to represent the voice of constituents. This comes back to a point that Sara made earlier. Maybe through the Trailblazer deals and the accountability that is going to be put in there, MPs will have a role through the Trailblazer process, and that may be an opportunity to have a stronger connection for MPs at constituency level within the overall structure. Hopefully, that is an answer. As I said, I will follow up with the Committee on what the current thinking is around West Mids and GM for you, if that is helpful.
Q108 Fabian Hamilton: Anybody else briefly, because I know we are out of time.
Councillor Gittins: The involvement of local councillors and local MPs is really important in any consultation. It goes down to basic stakeholder mapping when you are setting your consultation. Who are the important people that we need to speak to?
Q109 Fabian Hamilton: Shouldn’t it be part of the structure of strategic and local transport that you have all the stakeholders involved rather than it being rather randomised as at the moment?
Councillor Gittins: Absolutely. Yes. I think you will find that it is happening in some areas, but not in others. Having that sort of structure—
Q110 Fabian Hamilton: It should be consistent. Thank you.
Paul Miner: We agree. Going back to my earlier answer, places like Wales and London are probably the best examples we have seen of clear lines of accountability between a transport body, the Mayor and an elected assembly. In other areas, where you might not have an elected assembly, you could have a mixture of councillors and MPs. It is important for MPs to be involved, because if Parliament is also involved that brings more resourcing into the scrutiny process, which some areas may lack.
Fabian Hamilton: Thank you, Chair. I know we are out of time.
Chair: Yes. I am sure we could continue this conversation for some time, but we have to move on to our second panel. I thank you all for your time this morning and for your undertakings to provide further information. That would be very helpful. For now, thank you very much indeed.