Transport written statement – made at on 30 November 2006.
Douglas Alexander
The Secretary of State for Transport, The Secretary of State for Scotland
Sir Rod Eddington will tomorrow publish the conclusions of his study into the effects of transport on economic growth, competition and productivity. Copies of his final report and advice will be made available in the Vote Office.
The study, which was commissioned last year by the Chancellor of the exchequer and my predecessor as Secretary of State for Transport, has carried out a rigorous and independent review of the effect of transport policy on economic growth in the UK.
A key challenge for Government over the coming decades will be to deliver sustainable development. Sir Rod Eddington's work has been informed by the recently published report by Sir Nicholas Stern on climate change which made a major contribution by demonstrating, on the basis of the most robust and comprehensive evidence available, that economic growth and the environment cannot be considered in isolation.
Indeed Sir Rod Eddington's work, which was supported by Sir Nicholas Stern and a group of leading academics, provides another extremely significant addition to the evidence base, and to the delivery of sustainable economic growth.
The Government will outline shortly its initial reactions to his advice, taking account of my Department's environmental and social objectives. I will then publish next year, alongside the comprehensive spending review, a more detailed response, which will take forward the 2004 white paper and set out new plans to minimise carbon emissions and sustain economic growth, by delivering improvements to transport at the national, regional and local levels. And it will reflect the conclusions of ongoing work on the long-term development of rail, as well as the conclusions of the ports policy review and the further steps on road pricing mechanisms.
I am extremely grateful for the immense hard work of Sir Rod and his team in producing this valuable and well-evidenced study.
The chancellor of the exchequer is the government's chief financial minister and as such is responsible for raising government revenue through taxation or borrowing and for controlling overall government spending.
The chancellor's plans for the economy are delivered to the House of Commons every year in the Budget speech.
The chancellor is the most senior figure at the Treasury, even though the prime minister holds an additional title of 'First Lord of the Treasury'. He normally resides at Number 11 Downing Street.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
A document issued by the Government laying out its policy, or proposed policy, on a topic of current concern.Although a white paper may occasion consultation as to the details of new legislation, it does signify a clear intention on the part of a government to pass new law. This is a contrast with green papers, which are issued less frequently, are more open-ended and may merely propose a strategy to be implemented in the details of other legislation.
More from wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_paper
Annotations
Dennis Ambler
Posted on 2 Dec 2006 11:02 am (Report this annotation)
Why were both these reports commissioned by the Treasury and used to justify revenue raising. The impact of both on the environment will be negligible but highly damaging to the competitiveness of the UK.
Mark Bestford
Posted on 2 Dec 2006 3:01 pm (Report this annotation)
Both reports were also heavily influenced by Stern. Some simple facts are left out of their recommendations. The majority of car travel is due to people who work. On average in the last few years I have driven around 40 miles a day commuting. Much of that is on major A roads and motorways. At 80 pence a kilometer that equates to an increase in costs of nearly 10 thousand pounds a year, something I don't think any company is going to reimburse. The result of these proposals will be to force much of the working population into unemployment as they will no longer be able to afford to work. In one job alone the loss of a car would have meant an increase in travel time of around 4 hours a day. The level of investment required in public transport to compensate for these proposals is of such a massive scale that it could not be done in our lifetimes, the money is simply not there. To make these solutions work you would need a shift in how this country lives and works of such magnitude that it would be akin to the complete rebuilding of this country. For public transport to work in a future where we have almost no cars then all employment needs to be concentrated and all living must also be concentrated. At the moment we live and work in such a haphazard way that for many it is impossible to use public transport. For the proposals given to work we would have to live in a science fiction utopia, where all one would have to do is step outside and there they could board the shuttle to whichever industrial complex they work in. The nearest we have to this in this country is London, and even there we can see that it simply does not work.