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Sustainable Transport

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport (Ruth Kelly) has made the following Ministerial Statement. Since the publication of Towards a Sustainable Transport System in October 2007, my department has been engaging with stakeholders on our longer-term transport strategy post-2014. In this initial phase of work, views on the goals and challenges that potential transport policies should help meet have been obtained from over 250 organisations throughout the country, as well as from over 600 members of the public who have participated in citizens’ panels. Today, my officials have sent a letter to all the organisations which participated summarising their contributions. A copy of this letter has been placed in the House Library. We plan to consult formally on the next phase in our long-term transport planning later this year. This timing is a slight revision from that published in Towards a Sustainable Transport System to align better with the timetable in the Climate Change Bill and to ensure that the process we develop is robust. In taking this work forward, we will also take account of the cross-government work on developing policies and proposals to deliver the UK’s first series of carbon budgets.