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Local Transport

I am pleased that we have debated local transport planning and funding. The subject is vital to achieving the Government’s goals for transport. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) and her Committee for their work. It has informed us in the Department, as it always does. I am also pleased that the Select Committee chose to hold an inquiry into local transport planning and funding last year, and I welcome scrutiny of this important policy area. The Committee took evidence from many eminent and expert witnesses, including my hon. Friend the Minister of State. Hon. Members will have to decide for themselves whether he is eminent or expert, or both. I would suggest both. I welcome the Committee’s support for the principle of a local transport planning framework. That is clearly within the Committee’s thoughts. It is a core responsibility of local government. I am pleased that alongside the concerns that the Committee has highlighted, it has also welcomed many of the key recent policy developments, which include introducing a formula to distribute the funding support for local authorities for smaller schemes and changing the arrangements for councils to report progress to the Department. The Committee rightly identified those as necessary. I want to make some underlying points before addressing the particular points raised. Local transport plans are making a real difference. Substantially larger capital budgets are being spent on local transport. Government funding support has more than doubled compared with a decade ago. The investment has contributed to continued major reductions in serious casualties on local roads and even more rapid falls in the number of those who are seriously injured on our roads. I regard that as progress. That has also reversed the long-term underinvestment in road maintenance. Again, I consider not only halting but reversing the decline in road conditions to be a major advance. A broader range of projects is being delivered. Measures are being taken locally to manage the use of cars more effectively and to encourage alternative ways of travelling. There is more consultation with stakeholders and the public, which I welcome. More effective schemes are being delivered, and delivery of schemes is being focused on the intended outcomes, a point to which I shall return later. Those are not just my opinions; they are some of the findings of the independent evaluation that the Department has set up in respect of this policy. I recognise that more needs to be done. The Secretary of State and I have undertaken a review of bus services: in some areas, we found real improvements being achieved in partnership between bus operators and local authorities, but all too often, as hon. Members have mentioned this evening, the current framework is still not delivering the services that passengers rightly expect. In December, we set out proposals in ““Putting Passengers First”” to modernise the framework to improve delivery, which was, of course, the biggest shake-up of bus services for 20 years since deregulation by the Conservative party. The Stern report highlighted the challenge of climate change, which is a key challenge for transport including for local transport planning. Over the past three years, the Department for Transport has worked closely with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to foster links between tackling air quality and transport problems locally, which cuts across tiers of councils and across government. The broader issue of climate change is one to which we will apply ourselves even further as we develop local transport planning, and I know that many local authorities welcome that approach. The Eddington study examined the effects of transport on economic growth, competition and productivity. The local transport plan framework provides a way of considering action on transport locally in the context of wider issues, which the Conservative party has not acknowledged this evening but which we know takes place in reality. The Eddington study highlights buses in urban areas and sub-national decision making as critical delivery areas. We will therefore consider the findings of the study as we develop the local transport planning framework. All those points are responses to studies conducted outside the Department. Last autumn’s local government White Paper, which has been referred to this evening, sets out this Government’s vision of revitalised local authorities working with partners to reshape public services around members of the public and the communities that they serve. That means changing how the Government work with local authorities, so for local transport planning we are introducing less burdensome reporting to Government and providing more choice for localities to deliver the solutions that are right for their circumstances and priorities. I hope that that has addressed a number of the concerns raised in the House this evening. I value the Select Committee’s report as we consider the way forward for local transport planning.