What Future for Rail in the Ten Year Plan for Transport?

WHAT FUTURE FOR RAIL

IN THE

TEN YEAR PLAN FOR TRANSPORT?

Peter North

Report to the All Party Parliamentary Rail Group

November 2003

What future for Rail in the Ten Year Plan for Transport?

Preface by All Party Parliamentary Rail Group

The All Party Parliamentary Rail Group (APPRG) comprises over 300 parliamentarians from both Houses who are interested in rail issues. It meets regularly in Westminster and arranges visits both in the UK and abroad. Lawrie Quinn MP and Nick Hawkins MP are the joint chairmen of the APPRG.

This Report was commissioned by the APPRG as a contribution to the current debate on transport policy. It is timely in that the Government is currently undertaking a review of the Ten Year Plan and the next Comprehensive Spending Review is under way.

The 10 Year Plan for Transport published in 2000 provided an innovatory framework, particularly for investment. The principles lying behind the plan commanded a wide degree of all-party support. Events have however now challenged the assumptions of the Plan, both for road and rail, and the APPRG concluded that a new and independent systematic analysis would be of value.

That is why we decided to commission this report by Professor Phil Goodwin of University College London, a widely acknowledged expert authority on transport economics. We are grateful for the financial support from The Railway Forum, which made this possible. Having agreed outline terms of reference with us, the approach and responsibility for the report lies totally with Professor Goodwin.

The All Party Group now welcomes this report; we are very satisfied with the quality of the analysis and therefore commend it for wider study. We believe that the report adds very powerfully to our understanding of the issues and have noted Professor Goodwin’s conclusion on the continuing economic rationale of strong programmes of both road and rail investment, along with modification to the prices and charges regimes for both modes.

Professor Goodwin has helped to raise the level of public understanding and debate, and this is central to our purpose. With some reshaping, a 10-year (and longer) planning framework clearly remains an essential tool of public policy.

Road user charging is now on the political agenda, as is the financing of the railways with the publication of the Rail Regulator’s draft Final Conclusions of his Interim Review of Network Rail’s Access Charges.

The APPRG intends to facilitate a number of meetings at different levels to disseminate the report’s analysis both within Parliament and Government, the rail industry and the wider community of business, both freight and passengers, and thus promote a lively and well informed public debate and, hopefully, engender some degree of common ground on the way forward.

November