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Local Transport

The best kind of partnerships, whether they are social, sexual, economic or political, are those in which people talk to one another, and occasionally listen to the response. Considering how many millions of people there are in the world, these partnerships are not easily found, and not usually in politics. My Committee felt that it was time that we looked carefully at the partnership that exists between the two groups of people who have to develop and deliver transport policy. It is important to say at the outset that the Government are one of the first for a very long time who have committed themselves to developing a transport policy. They have put large sums of money into various aspects of transport. If I am not always pleased with the result, that is because, unlike the pope, my Government do not seem to be infallible. When one looks at the work of our Committee, it is essential to understand what we are saying. Governments can set transport strategies, and indeed they do. Governments can provide the budgets, and indeed they do. What Governments cannot do is deliver. The people who deliver the local transport plans are, by definition, local. It is not exactly a difficult thing to understand, but it is crucial. Our Committee decided to look at the way that the local transport plan framework had been introduced, and we decided that it was an improvement on the former system. We said that it had achieved quite a lot. However, because local authorities have to deliver many of the targets, it is essential to examine the performance. It does not matter how good the intention—where is the performance? We decided that there is always a particular tension between central and local government. The Department for Transport looks to local authorities to implement improvements but—let us be straightforward about this—it does not have a hands-off attitude. It sets the national priorities, it reviews and it scores, because that is the modern way of government. We all have to have our report cards, Mr. Deputy Speaker, even you or I. The Department awards capital funding for the integrated transport bloc and it decides on the balance between capital and revenue funding. It then decides which major transport schemes will be funded by central Government. None of this is reprehensible or difficult to understand. The problem arises when, for one reason or another, that partnership begins to get slightly out of kilter. One could say that with that set of objectives, no local transport plan is, in effect, local. It is centrally decided and locally implemented, but the strategy, the money and the determination come from the Department for Transport.