The Empty Strategy
April 2005
The evolution of transport policy in this country is a fascinating subject for historical study, including such great historical points such as nationalisation in 1947, the BR Modernisation Plan of 1955, the opening of the Victoria Line and so forth. When John Prescott published his 1998 Transport White Paper and the subsequent 10-Year Transport Plan, he must have felt confident that his place in history was secure, and that his tenure in office would be looked back on as a golden age for transport.
Eight years later, things look rather different. Much energy, a good deal of print and huge sums of money have been expended. At one level, things could be said to have improved – though the extent depends on which baseline you use. Trains are less punctual than they were in 1997, and cost the taxpayer a good deal more. On the other hand, the number of journeys has risen by over 30%, almost the entire fleet of slam-door stock on London commuter services has been replaced and frequencies have been increased substantially, particularly on the key InterCity routes.
When you think about the depths of the crises that the rail industry was in during those weeks after Hatfield five years ago, the picture is far from bleak. Patronage has recovered and growth has resumed – reaching around 3% in calendar year 2004, providing TOCs with around 7% more fare revenue. Indeed, the SRA statistics show that fares income topped £1 billion a quarter for the first time in the second and third quarters of 2004/05.
Quality and punctuality is rising (you can tell that the news is good, because several newspapers ignored the publication of the SRA’s latest performance statistics in March), and the running sore of the West Coast Main Line project is largely over, with patronage on the key London-Manchester corridor apparently bouncing back with a vengeance (up 29% in the third quarter on the previous year’s depressed numbers).
As for all that taxpayers’ money, well you could argue that it serves the Treasury right for starving the railways of investment for all those decades after nationalisation. With the Government committed to funding the railways through to 2009 at around £4bn a year, surely all that backlog will be made up by then, and we can return to the expansion agenda.
But there are two major problems with this analysis. The first is that the Government has already made it clear that it will not continue the current level of support beyond 2009: the whole point of the rail review and last summer’s White Paper was to regain control of the money and then reduce the spending.
And the second point is that – even if money was available after 2009 – the projects are not. With the modern requirements in terms of planning, authorisation and financial evaluation, any major project that the engineers would want to start after that point would need to be at an advanced stage now (if you do not believe this, think of the East London Line, Thameslink 2000 or the Channel Tunnel Rail Link).
So what is on the stocks? Well, there’s the ongoing saga of Thameslink 2000, where the attempt to win powers to undertake the works resumes shortly. And the East London Line, which Transport for London is now taking forward. Then there’s the Airtrack scheme for improving rail access to Heathrow Airport. And, of course, there’s CrossRail. These are all major projects, and all are no doubt immensely valuable. The problem is that, if you do not happen to be a London commuter or airport user, then they are not going to be a great deal of use.
Critically, none of the schemes will help to address congestion on, say the M1 corridor to the East Midlands and Leeds or the M4 corridor to Bristol and Cardiff, or the growing problems of urban congestion in the major conurbations. None of the schemes will help the railways improve competition with the airlines, so reducing environmental damage (and possibly the need to invest in extra airport infrastructure).
This was reinforced recently by the award of a new franchise for the East Coast Main Line to GNER, for at least seven years, or ten if performance targets are met. The award was a welcome end to uncertainty, and pleasing to regular GNER users who have come to appreciate the company’s high standards of service. However, it was manifestly not a mechanism for delivering a dynamic future for the route.
On rolling stock, we will get an expanded and overhauled HST fleet (25 years old) and completion of refitting the 16 year old Mark IV coaches. On infrastructure – one scheme to electrify an alternative line from Doncaster to improve capacity on the London-Leeds route. Currently, only one project seems to have survived the great ECML upgrade scheme – the £12m project under construction to eliminate conflicting movements at Grantham. No new flyovers at Hitchin or Newark; no widened viaduct at Welwyn and little or no improvement in line speed.
Meanwhile, the Government will be taking £100m a year out of the line in premium payments – effectively a tax of around £6 per passenger journey – and using it to cross-subsidise other less efficient routes elsewhere. Passengers might stomach this if it supports rural railways. They will be less keen if it is simply going to provide more trains for well-heeled users of Heathrow Airport.
The sad truth is, that after eight years, we are no closer to having a coherent, long-term strategy for our railway industry; politicians have still to decide what they want the railways to do (other than help them to win elections) and how much they are willing to pay for. Until those fundamental issues are addressed, the future continues to look bleak.