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Sustainable Transport

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a statement to accompany the publication today of the coalition Government's White Paper on local transport, and the simultaneous publication of bidding guidance to accompany our new local sustainable transport fund. Both documents are available to colleagues in the Vote Office and have been placed in the Library of the House. This Government's vision is for a transport system that helps create growth in the economy, and tackles climate change by cutting our carbon emissions. The launch of the White Paper, and the associated local sustainable transport fund, represents a significant step towards meeting those two key Government objectives. In both the Budget and the spending review, the Chancellor pledged to make the tough choices that will allow us to maintain investment in new and existing infrastructure to support a growing economy, while eliminating the structural deficit over the lifetime of the Parliament. The spending review reflected transport's vital role in this. I am pleased that we were able to secure significant investment to allow us to go ahead with important transport initiatives. The investment we have committed to in rail, low-carbon vehicles and public and sustainable transport reflects the determination to secure growth while cutting carbon. In the medium term, our transport decarbonisation strategy centres around the progressive electrification of the passenger car fleet, supported by policies to increase generation capacity and decarbonise the grid. By also prioritising spending on key rail projects such as high-speed rail and rail electrification, we will be providing travellers with attractive new options instead of the plane and the car. In the immediate term, addressing shorter, local trips offers huge potential in helping to grow the economy and tackle climate change. Shorter trips are important— two thirds of all journeys are less than five miles. Walking, cycling and public transport are all real, greener alternatives for such trips. What is more, we know that people who travel to the shops on foot, by bicycle or by public transport can spend more per head than those who travel by car, and research shows that improvements to the public realm can increase turnover in the high street by 5% to 15%. Increased sustainable travel also helps tackle congestion, which is a drag on business causing excess delays in urban areas at a cost of around £11 billion per annum. Let us not forget the further benefits that follow a shift to more sustainable transport—benefits to the air we breathe and to our levels of fitness, and the money in our pockets as well. Investment in sustainable transport helps make our towns and cities healthier and more attractive places to live, work and shop. The White Paper sets out how we can encourage the uptake of more sustainable modes at local level, and the unprecedented £560 million we have allocated in our new local sustainable transport fund will support that. Our commitment to helping local authorities with this vital agenda is reaffirmed by the amount of money we are making available. The local sustainable transport fund forms part of a wider picture of more streamlined and simplified funding for local authorities. That will give local authorities more power and flexibility to meet local transport needs. Across Government, we have demonstrated our commitment to ending top-down decision making and the tendency in Whitehall to develop one-size-fits-all solutions that ignore the specific needs and behaviour patterns of local communities. The Government have already taken significant steps to hand back power to local communities, including replacing regional development agencies with local enterprise partnerships, giving communities a much greater say over planning decisions and ending the top-down imposition of housing targets. Today's White Paper is about extending the decentralisation of power to local transport and putting into context what that means for local authorities. We are particularly keen to receive bids for the local sustainable transport fund from local authorities that are in partnership with the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, and that have the support of local businesses. We believe that by encouraging bids in this way, we will be able to capture innovative solutions to local transport needs in all areas—rural and urban. An example I often cite is the Cuckmere community bus in my constituency. Individual residents in the Cuckmere valley have come together to run regular and frequent bus services that take people in rural areas to their nearest towns. The services are provided entirely by volunteers. Wheels to Work schemes provide transport to people who are unable to access training, employment or education due to a lack of suitable public or private transport. The schemes can therefore particularly benefit people living in isolated rural communities, and they can play an important role in helping people to come off benefits and regain their independence. Those real examples are happening right now, and we want to enable similar stories to unfold in other areas across the country. In addition, we recognise that some initiatives benefit from a single national approach. They include the provision of £11 million of funding for Bikeability cycle training next year to allow 275,000 10 to 11-year-olds to benefit from on-road cycle training. There is a commitment to support Bikeability for the duration of the Parliament, which will allow as many children as possible to undertake high-quality cycle training. We will also improve end-to-end journeys by encouraging transport operators, and those involved in promoting cycling and car clubs or sharing, to work together to provide better information and integrate tickets and timetables. We are delivering with operators and public sector bodies the infrastructure to enable most local public transport journeys to be undertaken using smart ticketing by December 2014. We will work with the transport industry to support the development of e-purses and other technology related to smart ticketing, and we will support the infrastructure to make that happen. The way in which transport investment decisions are made will be reviewed to ensure that the carbon implications are fully recognised. Responsibility for local roads classification will be transferred to local authorities to give them the flexibility to determine the status of their roads. We will also be setting out in a strategic framework for road safety by spring 2011 how to ensure that Britain's roads remain the world's safest. Traffic signs policy will be modernised to provide more flexibility and reduced costs and bureaucracy for local authorities to enable them to develop innovative traffic management solutions. We want to build a transport system that is an engine for economic growth, and also one that is greener—one that creates growth and cuts carbon. By improving the links that move goods and people around, by encouraging people to travel sustainably, and by targeting investment in new projects that promote green growth, we can help to build the balanced, dynamic low-carbon economy that is essential for our future prosperity. The White Paper and the associated local sustainable transport fund demonstrate our commitment to taking that agenda forward, and I commend them to the House.