Constitutional changes needed to enable PT across the UKs city regions

Back to: 15 The priority transport schemes in Wales to 2040

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So far, I have set out my story of the Metro, the urgency of addressing car dependency and the need for transit-oriented development. I have also set out the kinds of transport projects and interventions we need to develop and deliver in Wales over the next 15-20 years to satisfy out Net Zero Wales targets and support economic development. This will require I suspect £3-4Bn in capital investment and perhaps a further £150-200M in annual operating subsidy.

By way of a summary, I want to wrap up by exploring what we need to do to realise that vision, secure the benefits and do so within more of a UK context rather than just a Welsh and Cardiff Region one.

My primary actions/considerations are:

All of the above will require some finesse and subtlety (that I sometimes lack) in the necessary communications and engagement.

16.1 Devolution of rail powers & funding

From a Welsh perspective, to satisfy our transport decarbonisation obligations and to support more sustainable economic development, we need to address the suboptimal constitutional arrangements of the rail industry. Currently, rail infrastructure investment decisions and funding thereof, are non-devolved (so the responsibly of the UK Government), but responsibility for the operational subsidy, in effect, is and therefore the responsibility of the Welsh Government.

As a matter of urgency, the UK Labour Government needs to fully devolve all powers over rail and funding thereof to Welsh Government. This means that all English rail spend (HS2, NR, IRP, etc) is defined by HMT as “England only” for Barnett purposes (PS this by implication will require an adjustment to the block grant WG receives from Westminster). In advance, a temporary measure would see UK Government establish and fund (even co-fund with WG) a separate Wales Rail Enhancement Pipeline[1] completely independent of the current RNEP process which has systemically overlooked Wales.

One might argue that devolution should include the entire Wales Route even that part on the English side of the border. For example, the Marches line is more important and more likely to secure funding for enhancements from an empowered WG than it is from the DfT; this might lead to a comparability factor for English rail spend of perhaps 110% or more in respect of Barnett allocations to WG.

Today, Transport for Wales, which was set up to procure the Wales and Borders franchise, has developed its capacity and capability and, aside from operating rail services and leading the implementation of the South Wales Metro, has led the initial development of future Metro and regional multi-modal transport schemes across Wales (and in doing so is engaging cross border on schemes that impact Bristol/southwest England and Chester, Cheshire and the Wirral).

In fact, TfW now has more strategic development capacity and focus than both the DfT or NR are able to devote to Wales; I also note that TfW has more capacity and capability than the nascent CJCs in Wales who will work in partnership with TfW to develop their finer grain regional transport plans.

TfW is ideally placed therefore, working to WG policy, to be the lead organisation for transport systems and service development and operation thereof, and infrastructure in Wales.

Any role for “Great British Railways” (GBR) therefore, has to reflect the primacy of organisations like Transport for Wales and Transport Scotland and support them as the lead strategic developers and operators of integrated multi-modal transport services in Wales and Scotland; this provision should be extended to more powerful sub national transport bodies in England.

As Eddington set out back in 2007, it is integrated local public transport we need to focus on. GBR should have an oversight and coordination role, but it needs to step away from the “local” and instead focus on those pieces of infrastructure that are strategic to the entire UK, so perhaps the intercity routes? In that context, I also support in principle the suggestion from the UCR of a UK Net (strategic UK rail routes and corridors), but only if WG has a “seat at the table” re strategy and planning, which is not the case today. In arrangement such as these, HMT also needs to respond by ensuring capital funding is devolved to nations and regions on more permanent equitable and formulaic basis.

Welsh Government also have an obligation. It just is not tenable to set out such major mode shift targets without acknowledging that further capital investment and operational subsidy will be required to enable it. Just to repeat, NZW sets out a need to increase PT (rail and bus) by 40% by 2030 and to double again by 2040. This is an enormous but necessary change that requires a fundamental shift in spending priorities and allocation between government departments, and some measure of fiscal innovation. Furthermore, decisions which lock up existing funding that could be better utilised also need to be reviewed. For example, it is not tenable to be explaining why we are cutting bus services whilst at the same time offering free bus travel or even worse, free parking, and basking in the plaudits from ambitious Net Zero Wales policy at the same time.

Without the above Wales will not reach its own NZ targets and the many opportunities for significant transport led economic development and regeneration lost.

16.2 Transport & land use planning, TOD

More generally across the UK, it seems to me, that decisions on rail investment for enhancements and services are often completely divorced from wider planning considerations. How many Local Development Plans (LDPs) are really considered at the heart of rail planning, or vice versa for that matter. I would argue they are not; UK rail planning has become a bit of a centralised ivory tower exercise. The traditional industry “five year” Soviet style plan and the 7- or 15-year franchise, which has been the norm, has not helped and changes to that approach via GBR are to be encouraged and welcomed (without damaging the need for strategic and longer-term thinking).

This is not just a rail industry issue; it is a UK planning issues (including in Wales). As set out earlier, too often we see major developments (houses, retail, schools and hospitals) built in locations with poor public transport access (rail and/or bus) and with no reference to rail planning. We need some thought applied to address this issue; climate change and sustainability means we need to plan and build better places that reduce our dependency on cars and reduce barriers to public transport. We are trying to break that mould in Wales through the work of Transport for Wales and the Office for Future Generations. However, we still have a long way to go.

I think we need to change how we plan transport across the UK so that it is better integrated with wider local planning processes. So, whilst planning and maintaining the main lines in the UK should perhaps be led by GBR & NR in England, local rail planning and development in England should be much more aligned (and perhaps integrated) with city region and local authority transport planning. In Wales WG (and TfW) should lead in partnership with the emerging Welsh regions and primary local authorities. More tactically in Wales we need a far more prescriptive approach to Technical Advice Notes (TANs) to encourage/enforce more TOD. Such considerations have to be a red line in any future LDPs and SDPs. As set out earlier, in Wales (and more widespread in the UK perhaps) we need Metro Development Corporations[2].

16.3 Road Pricing

As set out in The Climate Emergency and car dependency we have no choice but to address our heroin like addiction to car use. We have spent 50 years building our lives around them. We need to spend the next twenty in cold turkey to break the addiction.

Despite the personal freedoms and benefits, given the very large negative externalities of excessive car use, we need to introduce a fiscal disincentive. It is also clear from most of the transport modelling I have seen that it’s no good just adding more public transport capacity and/or reducing fares, you also have to actively disincentivise car use. I favour the term “reduction in the car use discount”.

Many others have drawn the same conclusion. Pelayo Martínez Bauluz, Manager, Barcelona Metropolitan Entity of Transport (EMT), is purported to have said,

“ A vision of public transport is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for achieving sustainable mobility. Measures must be implemented to dissuade car use.”

What form this measure takes is open for debate. Options include higher local parking levies, workplace parking levies, a flat road use price or something more granular. I favour all and a specific use charge that is proportional to one or all of:

i) traction power

ii) size and weight of a vehicle

iii) emissions

iv) distance travelled

v) occupancy and

vi) availability of PT alternatives.

So, a big petrol SUV with one person, covering many miles in an urban area pays most and a small EV covering only a few miles in a rural area the least, and perhaps nothing. This approach will provide an incentive for smaller, lighter EVs with multiple passengers and shorter trips. I am also acutely aware than in rural areas, PT is difficult and costly to provide, and so car use will likely remain much more important than in urban areas. On that basis we ought to charge a lot less in such places.

Another consideration will be the cost of development, implementation and operation of a road pricing system; the more complex a system, the higher these will be. We need to be careful we don’t end up with a system that costs more to operate than the revenues it raises. From a Cardiff perspective yes, vehicles entering the city pay, but so do local residents based on the above principles. We should also add discounts for certain users, for example people with reduced mobility, some essential workers like district nurses, doctors, emergency services, etc.

We also need to extend this thinking to the other subsidies we provide car users (e.g., low or free car parking, etc).

As part of a move to a more progressive fiscal regime some of the revenues ought to be used to reduce some local taxes, for example domestic council tax. This may be a necessary measure to sweeten the RUC itself.

No matter how, some form of road use pricing is for me a moral, equitable and financial inevitability. More practically, fewer people driving will reduce congestion and free up road space for those that have to use their cars for particular trips.

16.4 The Cardiff Capital Region & Metro

I have advocated and written in support of a regional approach to transport, planning and economic development in southeast Wales since my first 2011 report. I still do support that aim, however today, I am much more cognisant of the history and spatial, political and executive challenges of trying to shoe-horn one homogeneous governance arrangement into a varied heterogeneous region.

So, on reflection, even with the planned regional Corporate Joint Committees (CJC), I think we still have too many local authorities in the Cardiff Capital Region; some of whom are not effectively resourced to discharge all their statutory functions.

Consequently, I anticipate challenges to effectively lead, allocate and deploy commensurate resources, to support the regional responsibilities and governance implied to develop and bring forward strategic regional transport and development plans. I also urge that any new governance and executive arrangements reflect spatial, demographic and transport realities and different quanta/scale thereof, across the region. Specially one can’t realistically apply the same governance and process to Cardiff as to say Blaenau Gwent. Given Cardiff’s unique geography, I would treat separately from, but synergistically with, the rest of the Cardiff Capital Region.

I also look back to how successful the South Glamorgan and Mid Glamorgan councils were in bringing forward rail enhancement in the 1980s; so then, clearly less was more. So, being radical (and perhaps more reflective of the Williams Commission in 2014[3]), I think that Blaenau Gwent, Merthyr, Torfaen, Monmouthshire and the Vale of Glamorgan ought to be merged. The Vale of Glamorgan with Cardiff; Merthyr with RCT; Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen with Caerphilly; and Monmouthshire(perhaps) with Newport Table 4 . Maybe the question of a Metro Mayor for the CCR will rear its head? – especially given the profile and influence of England’s Metro Mayors with the new Labour Government at Westminster.

Some/all of these measures could help streamline and simplify decision making and provide some economies of scale via a regional CJC arrangement with just 6 local authorities. Whilst this will likely not happen, I think we all have to acknowledge that in reality, there is no perfect solution. So better to focus on what needs to be done and where we can forge agreement.

Table 4 Potential for fewer local authorities in the CCR

Cardiff Capital Region (Fewer Local Authorities?)	Est Pop.
Cardiff and the Vale	500k
RCT/Merthyr	300k
Bridgend	150k
Caerphilly, Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent	340k
Newport & Monmouthshire	250k

In terms of transport priorities and the Corporate Joint Committee (CJC) obligations re Regional Transport Plans (RTP), I assert that as a result of TfW’s work over the period 2020-23, we now know much more clearly, the “what” and “why” of the major strategic regional transport schemes required in the CCR out to 2040 (See15.5 Cardiff, the Cardiff Capital Region and Crossrail). We are now moving into a “how much will it cost? who pays? and when?” phase of work. This will require some compromise and pragmatism in the development of regional transport plans. So, I suggest:

Using TfW’s Metro development work (and specifically the CCR Programme Strategic Outline Case prepared by TfW) as a foundation; the region can bring forward a small number of additional strategic programmes (with sub-projects)

These programmes should aim to secure funding commitments from UK Government, WG, the CCR and its Local Authorities as well drawing from its own formal funding sources. For example, a regional Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), a business and/or domestic rate/council tax surcharge, etc
To complement these strategic programmes, I anticipate a number of smaller, tactical and more local interventions that individual local authorities maybe best placed to lead development and delivery. These could include last mile access to stations, local active travel, local highway reallocation and bus prioritisation measures and local bus service network optimisation, etc. In this context the provision of more segregated bus lanes will, in my view, be essential to enable more efficient and attractive bus services
As set out earlier, we have to better link transport and land use planning. The anticipated regional Strategic Development Plans (SDP) ought to progress in parallel with the RTP, reflect the National Development Framework[4] and have TOD as its focus; the next round of LDPs should be consistent with these. On that basis and where perhaps most value can be added to reduce our car dependency, the CCR and its local authorities via the CJC should/could focus on a community/high street TOD plan around all our Metro stations with the objective of helping revive local high streets all over the region – in doing so there needs to be a focus on housing
This then implies developing a more strategic capability re: transport/land use planning, TOD and regeneration especially around stations (perhaps linked to WG Transforming Towns programme), and all aligned to the strategic Metro plans emerging from TfW and reflected in the upcoming RTP. As I set out in my evidence to the Senedd Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee (SCCEI) and set out earlier (See 11.6 A Metro Development Corporation?) we need to ask “Do we need a Metro Development Corporation” to complement the work of TfW?
Given the above, and especially the mode shift and funding implications thereof, road pricing is likely unavoidable; in doing so we also have to consider other measures, e.g., parking fees, business rates levy related to parking spaces (higher for out-of-town sites/developments) or proxies thereof, etc.

16.5 A Constitutional upgrade for the UK AND Wales

My final change is more fundamental and goes beyond transport and local considerations in the CCR. As I set out earlier, the failings of the UK rail ecosystem, as well as my work in this sector over the last fifteen years, has politicised me in way I could not have anticipated in 2010. The UKs current constitutional arrangements are sub-optimal and in need of a fundamental upgrade. In fact, without major changes[5] I am not sure we can properly address some of the existential challenges we face in Wales, and clearly will be unable to embark on the kind of capital programme set out in the previous chapter.

Specifically, the current constitutional arrangements are a major constraint on more rail investment in Wales, and I suspect more broadly re: investment in economic infrastructure across much of the UK. A better system can enable better decisions and projects that can be funded and delivered more locally, not just in Wales and Scotland but the regions of England. This requires constitutional change to vest more powers/funding in Cardiff and Edinburgh, as well as the major cities and regions of England – and by implication reducing the role and centralising influenced of Westminster and especially Whitehall. From a Welsh perspective perhaps we should also see funding and powers vested in the new regional bodies proportionate to their populations?

Where UK Government could have a role, for example, is to provide a function to align strategic priorities across the nations and regions where synergies exist, and to help manage risks and liabilities associated with strategic economic infrastructure (where the nations and regions of England pay an “insurance premium” that HMT could/should manage?).

Welsh Government also needs the capacity to raise monies and borrow to invest in economic infrastructure in the way the UK Government does. The ability of the UK Treasury to raise debt and issues bonds etc should therefore also be devolved so that Wales (and the regions of England perhaps) can invest for the long term in economic infrastructure – rather than be lumbered with the debt accruing from investment elsewhere in the UK.

I am not looking for or expecting a perfect utopian solution in Wales for future transport development. I just want and expect that the officials tasked with the responsibility for strategic transport planning and investment in Wales, especially rail, have Wales as their top priority and have the funding and powers necessary to implement commensurate interventions. This is clearly not the case in the current UK rail industry ecosystem. WG also needs to have greater accountability for those matters for which it is responsible. However, the current constitutional arrangements act against clarity in this regard.

This is a broken system and any intent to address challenges presented by the climate emergency, post-industrial decline and inequality[6], will require a radical overhaul of how our economies function and in a way that most people have not yet realised. I suspect many countries will eventually come to realise that the costly transition to a more carbon friendly, equitable and sustainable economy will require the issue of long term “climate change transition” bonds or similar as a well as radical fiscal changes – inc. ubiquitous measures to reduce car dependency.

I am not convinced enough politicians at Westminster really understand the scale of changes needed in the UK, locked as many are, into the Westminster/Whitehall bubble. In fact, if there was any silver lining from Brexit was that it started to expose the weakness of Britain’s current over centralised constitutional and fiscal arrangements.

Ultimately Britain is going to have to undergo fundamental constitutional and fiscal reform with powers moving away from Westminster/Whitehall to Leeds, Manchester, Bristol, Newcastle etc….as well as to Cardiff and Edinburgh.

16.6 To conclude

To conclude and perhaps a fitting end to this part of my Metro story. In Spring 2023, I was asked by BBC Radio 4 to meet Alexei Sayle (who as it turns out has close family association with the rail industry) as part of his “Meeting strangers on a train” programme[7]. I enthusiastically accepted given my memories of the comic during my time living in Manchester in the 1980s. That was whilst I was living in the William Kent Crescent, Hulme– that is a whole different story[8] and covers flat fires, music, the PSV club, salmon taxis, recreational drugs and Jamie Nicholson’s Kitchen Recording Studio Figure 216 Figure 217).

Figure 216 Top left my flat in William Kent Crescent in Hulme ~1985

Figure 217 My ~1985 “recording token” for the Kitchen Studio in Hulme

Bizarrely, as I was waiting to get on a train at Bridgend in Spring 2023 to meet Alexei, Carwyn Jones jumped of the train in front. I hadn’t really spoken to Carwyn since he was First Minister, and I was being an irritant to his officials. We both reflected that we had made enormous progress….and whilst challenges still lie ahead, the Metro would happen. I am also very sure that without devolution or Welsh Government there would be no Metro.

Then the train with Alexei pulled in, I jumped on and we engaged in 20 minutes chat about Wales, rail, Metro, planning, politics and devolution (some of which I am sure could never be broadcast). I also referred back to Marquand’s 1936 book which first set out the concept of a Metro in southeast Wales. In fact, whilst a little delayed I noted that we are now at least beginning to deliver the Vision he set out back in 1936. One still has to ask why is it that it has taken so long?

I also told Alexi that I had shared with my children that I was going to meet him, and that their response was, “who the fuck is Alexei Sayle?” We are all clearly getting older, but not too old to keep on, going on. More power to you Alexei and your Dr Marten boots. Since the mid-1970s I too have always owned at least one pair; so, despite recent progress on our Metro I am prepared to put them on again to help maintain progress, and to help anyone else trying to build a Metro.