King’s Speech Analysis

Labour has hit the ground running since the election in July. Forty Bills were announced in the first Kings Speech of this Parliament, setting a challenging timetable. It will be interesting to see whether the new Government can keep up this pace and deliver.

In terms of surface transport, there were four bills specifically focussed on public transport, while a number of others that could impact positively or negatively on transport and transport infrastructure.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

One of the first and most important pieces of legislation that Labour wants to enact is the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

“The Bill will speed up and streamline the planning process to… accelerate the delivery of major infrastructure projects in alignment with our industrial, energy, and transport strategies.”

“We will simplify the consenting process for major infrastructure projects and enable relevant, new and improved National Policy Statements [NPSs] to come forward, establishing a review process that provides the opportunity for them to be updated every five years, giving increased certainty to developers and communities.”

Some of this is to be welcomed. There is a need for improvement in bringing forward new net-zero infrastructure and for NPSs to be updated and regularly reviewed. However, Labour needs to make sure that it doesn’t inadvertently make it easier to build infrastructure with only short term benefits but with long term repercussions. Bigger roads would fall into this category. These increase carbon and undermine investment in public transport and public health, making Labour’s wider missions harder to achieve.

Also, it is unclear where these time savings will come from. The opportunities for local communities to participate in infrastructure planning have already been reduced, with rushed and shortened examinations, and a compressed timetable to seek judicial review (from 12 weeks to just 6). Local communities are already at a huge disadvantage when confronted with the mass of documentation that developers produce for infrastructure projects, and their large teams of consultants. If the Government reduces timescales any further it risks tipping the balance too far the wrong way.

A lot of noise has been made about the length of time it takes to make decisions. The planning process has been blamed, egged on by some right-wing commentators, seemingly more concerned about ripping out environmental protections than enabling good decisions. However, planning is essential for public health (and minimising costs on the NHS) and a vibrant, participative democracy, so Labour needs to tread carefully.

When it comes to roads, much of the delay comes from National Highways failing to look at other options properly and running consultations with inadequate or misleading information. At the other end of the process, the Government has delayed taking decisions for the majority of the roads it has passed; five of them by over a year. Three of these schemes were not subject to judicial review either, so these long delays were entirely of the Government’s own making. Yet this is rarely mentioned when discussing planning, the system is always blamed, not those using (or abusing) it.

It’s good that nature recovery is mentioned, but nothing is said about reducing air, noise or water pollution from damaging development.

English Devolution Bill

This focuses on devolving more power to local leaders, recognising that England is one of the most centralised economies in the world and that the current devolved situation is rather random. It aims to strengthen mayoral powers to enable growth and introduce new powers and duties for local areas to produce Local Growth Plans. The key will be ensuring these take in wider considerations and don’t promote growth at any price.

The Bill aims to make devolution the default setting, making it easier for devolved areas to access greater power. One area which could be a game changer is giving combined authorities spatial plan making powers to help bring together transport and planning.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

This is a relatively straightforward piece of legislation that aims to bring back the railways into public ownership. It will amend existing legislation to make appointing a public sector operator, the default position, rather than an option of last resort. This will mean that when existing deals expire, they will not be re-tendered and will come back under public control. This will start to reverse the fragmentation caused by privatisation.

Better Bus Bill

This Bill acknowledges the important role of buses, calling them ‘the lifeblood of our communities’. Its main purpose is to open up franchising powers and to accelerate the process to deliver faster changes. It will also remove the ban on new, publicly owned bus companies. However, whether local authorities will be able to set up, or buy, bus companies in the current economic environment remains to be seen.

It talks about safeguarding local bus networks and raising standards but doesn’t say how this might be achieved. It also pledges to reform funding by giving more control and flexibility over finances. This could be good news if it relaxes the artificial constraints around capital and revenue spending. However, without more funding overall, how much difference these reforms will achieve is questionable.

Railways Bill

This is the Bill that will set up Great British Railways (GBR), to create a new “directing mind” for the railways. The aim is to simplify and unify the rail system, to reduce waste and improve services. It will also pave the way for a new Passenger Standards Authority to champion passenger rights alongside simpler ticketing, although no mention is made of cheaper ticketing.

In a welcome move, freight is specifically mentioned, with GBR being required to promote rail freight alongside a rail freight target set by the Government.

It also mentions the role of open access and how it can bring benefits. This may be true but when trying to bring the railways together to better integrate them, having operators outside of this risks undermining the purpose of GBR. Also open access operators’ record of lower punctuality and higher cancellations than franchised or managed services (which are not particularly good in the first place) makes their overall value questionable.

High Speed Rail (Crewe to Manchester) Bill

Labour is explicit that it will not reverse the cancellation of HS2 and that this Bill is being repurposed to enable improved east-west connectivity in the north.

It makes some good statements about rail, such as: “Rail is the most effective, environmentally friendly way to improve transport capacity between city centres, and journey times between them.”

Otherwise there is little detail provided as to what would be delivered.

Water (Special Measures) Bill

This focuses on making water companies and those who run them more accountable. It’s not a Bill you would have thought would relate to transport but given the fact that road run-off is responsible for 18% of water body failures it is disappointing that the proposed reforms around pollution are not broader in scope. There is a clear need to make National Highways and Local Highway Authorities more accountable and for them to clear up the pollution coming off their roads. It would be good to see tackling road run-off included as an amendment as the Bill progresses through Parliament.

Crime and Policing Bill

The aim of this bill is to “…strengthen community policing, give the police greater powers to deal with anti social behaviour”. If this is successful and leads to safer streets then people are likely to walk, wheel and cycle more, and to use public transport, as they will be safer doing so.

This could be important in increasing modal shift and making women in particular feel safer.

What wasn’t mentioned

Despite pre-election statements, it was disappointing that Labour has not followed through with an air pollution bill to strengthen powers to enable local authorities to take a more proactive role in regulating and reducing pollution.

Conclusion

Overall, Labour has set out an ambitious legislative agenda and it will be interesting to see whether it can deliver. It’s less about its majority but the amount of Parliamentary time needed for so many Bills. Overall, its surface transport and devolution Bills appear good news for the travelling public, but they also need to be followed up with increased investment. This will be less possible if Labour pours vast sums into the £10bn Lower Thames Crossing, £2.5+bn A303 Stonehenge, £1.5bn A66 and other schemes that make little economic sense.

However, on environmental protection and reducing the damaging impact from road traffic, it is disappointingly silent (unlike many roads).

Other bills though not directly related to surface transport could be broadened such as the Water Bill to include road run-off, while the Crime and Policing Bill could encourage more active travel and public transport use if people are made to feel safer. Finally, some of the finance and economy bills (not discussed here) could bring in more private investment into infrastructure. This could be good or bad news, depending on where that is focussed.

 

Photo credit: © House of Lords 2024 / photography by Annabel Moeller