The Government’s first year and decarbonisation: What’s the story for transport?

JUST OVER A YEAR into the new Labour Government seems a good time to reflect on what has happened in regard to its transport policy, and more specifically the wider environment in which that is having to be delivered, including the pathway to Net Zero.

I believe there are encouraging signs in many areas. It is easy to forget that we are not long out of the culture wars being propagated from Ministers within DfT towards the end of the Sunak Government, including the overt courting of motorists’ votes with the retrograde Plan for Drivers, and the rushed announcements cancelling HS2 northern leg and the launch of the hotch potch of schemes branded as Network North. The approach being adopted now is being built more clearly around policy propositions, consultation and purposeful policy, at least for the most part.

The Spending Review settlement for the Department for Transport announced in June is as good as perhaps could have been hoped for in the financial circumstances, and this has provided the basis for longer term mayoral settlements to support integrated transport policies for their areas with a focus on sustainable modes , and a properly funded pathway to a range of significant infrastructure schemes.

A combination of planning reforms and recently announced funding for transport investments to accelerate the delivery of home building signals a clear priority. As the many issues of LTT have debated over the years, it is not just the volume of housing that is built, but the location and wider connectivity of these developments which will matter to their livability and emissions burden. Excellent and poor practice both exist.

In deciding how housing is brought forward it is a critical time to ensure that we don’t judge the developments solely on pace and price to the consumer, but on long-term quality, hitting multiple missions including decarbonisation, inclusive growth and healthy neighbourhoods.

If this opportunity is missed, more communities will be locked in to expensive car dependency, with costs which then fall back to the Government through calls for greater ‘congestion busting’ investments, poorer health outcomes and missed environmental targets.

On active travel, there have been notable interventions by Professor Chris Whitty, the government’s Chief Medical Adviser and head of the public health profession , which further reinforce the growing recognition of mainstreaming the wider benefits of walking, wheeling and scooting.

The cross- party coming together of the Mayors in a commitment to create 3,500 miles of safer routes for these modes is a huge development in this field. Would this have been likely in the pre-Mayoral system, or without Active Travel England? Whilst there are legitimate claims for greater investment, this programme is now sustained by a coalition of interests which goes well beyond cycle advocates.

Delivery and demonstrating impacts from the current active travel plans are key to enabling this momentum to arm wrestle greater spending power. I would extend the ask to broadening the scope and size of the ‘pothole’ repair fund. Welcome though the Government’s funding has been, the backlog has been decades in the making and extends well beyond the roadway to the footpaths across all of our communities. This may seem unimportant relative to ‘unleashing growth’, but it matters to whether people feel invested in , and it has direct inclusivity and health impacts.

On the environmental consequences of transport we see an increased emphasis on electric vehicle adoption. The Climate Change Committee has indicated that it expects a faster transition in this area than the Department for Transport had been planning for. The surprise government announcement on 15th July of £650 million of grant funding to support the purchase of new zero emission cars priced under £37,000 underlines the commitment to giving the ZEV Mandate space to succeed,- which it needs to do. More funding has also been given to charge point provision and for cross pavement cable gulley installation to extend home charging.

People have rightly asked why that £650m allocation ,and why now? Could that not have been spent on [fill in blank for preferred non-car alternative] instead? This is an important question and it is difficult to overlook the distributional impacts of the subsidies for wealthier people. It was only 2022 when the previous Government withdrew purchase subsidies having declared that the EV market had been “successfully kickstarted”. There was no perceived need for this kind of market subsidy when the ZEV mandate was introduced, so why this and why now?

The answer perhaps lies in global events. The original Transport Decarbonisation Plan was written during Covid and so the ‘error bands’ for what would happen next were extremely wide. However, who amongst us had the conflict in Ukraine, global trade wars, and the rapid rise of Reform on the same bingo card?

There are some further dark clouds above. The economy is still struggling and the market conditions for vehicle manufacturing are tough. UK manufacturing of new cars is at a 70 year low (bar a short period during Covid). The combined need to accelerate EV sales and to avoid the ZEV mandate being branded as ‘net zero nonsense’ makes the subsidy look like pragmatic politics, even if not driven by cost-effective spend on decarbonisation. This is perhaps an example illustrating how it seems that we are set for a period of policy making which will be a bit like gardening in a storm.

The Headwinds: transport decarbonisation in a storm report I wrote for the Energy Demand Research Centre and covered in LTT two issues back, summarised my analysis of what is required from the transport sector to keep on track with carbon reduction. Some might say that we still haven’t got the right balance of spending on road schemes and rail schemes to deliver on this , and I don’t yet see a level of progress with travel behaviour change or new EV uptake to justify a large investment programme on roads without problematic levels of carbon generation. The Climate Change Committee have said the same on progress with sustainable aviation fuel and aviation expansion.

However, so much has changed since the first Transport Decarbonisation Plan was written in 2021, that it is hard to know what the sum of the parts of the various actions being taken actually is, and what more might need to be done in the road, aviation or maritime sectors to pull transport’s CO2 contribution into line. Rather than a continuing scheme- by-scheme argument, there is a need for clarity about the overall goals and progress towards them. So time for a refresh of the Decarbonisation Plan?

One of the key documents to look out for in the autumn is the third attempt to produce a national net zero strategy or carbon budget delivery plan, the previous two having been found to be illegal in the UK High Court. Whilst the Climate Change Committee publishes sectoral pathways, there is only an obligation to be compliant with the Climate Act at a whole economy level.

In this context it is impossible to judge whether transport is doing enough without looking across the whole economy. The next national plan is, therefore, critical for re-evaluating the scale of ambition for transport. However, it would be surprising if the pathways are too divergent from those expected to set out in the 7th Carbon Budget (2038 to 2042) on which the CCC recently gave its advice to the Government , and which will push the pace of change required by the transport sector.

My final reflection is on whether a separate decarbonisation plan for the sector is the right way forward? Certainly the 2021 plan provided a focus which had been lacking, but it always felt odd to have a decarbonisation strategy that was not also the transport strategy. The actions we need to take to reach net zero should not be seen to be separate from those required to address health, well-being, productivity or other challenges. They are part of it. In an environment where the consensus over net zero has been fractured, it feels even more important that decarbonisation should be a golden thread throughout policy.

The forthcoming planned Integrated National Transport Strategy is an opportunity to demonstrate this. Such a shift also poses huge cultural challenges to the way we work as a profession in transport. If we can’t make that shift, then there seem to me to be considerable risks that we will not generate or sustain the public legitimacy necessary to make the tough choices that lie ahead , or bring the coherence to our policy making necessary to deliver on our ambitions.