Department for Transport United Kingdom

And I think Ruth is referencing a report that came out a few years ago.

The one that has most recently been released, the analysis around the expansion that the Department for Transport has recently done still shows that Heathrow expansion could add tens of billions of pounds as we go towards 2050.

But it's also really important to say that Heathrow is our international hub airport.

So although we're talking about the growth impact that it could have, there is also a really important resilience concern there as well, because we don't want people flying to Sheldagol or Schiphol.

which will be March 7th, 2027.

The Department for Transport's press release said that Heidi Alexander is calling time on unacceptable performance on the West Coast mainline and promises renewed focus on passengers over profits.

Want to raise an eyebrow, Richard?

Well, it did a bit because, you know, the process here is something that's been fairly well understood for a while.

And that's a good point.

I mean, re-announcement, these are things that have already been done.

I think if you take a sort of step back from this and try and sort of summarise this, Nigel, What have the Department for Transport done here? Or what have ministers done here? Well, they've taken an opportunity, as ministers will always do, particularly with a party conference, and particularly with a prime minister who is very much focused on the north and Manchester and so on, to make it appear that they are getting a grip and being decisive about performance on that route.

There's nothing of itself wrong with that.

But this definitely is an issue.

And actually in the UK, the Department for Transport commissioned a report and they had various different studies about real world experiences and the RAC did an opinion poll.

And there was an overwhelming reaction from drivers that this is an issue.

But at the moment, there's nothing to say that carmakers are going to change anytime soon.

Yeah.

And the good news is that earlier this month, the Department for Transport, they basically said that its plan was to create permitted development rights and give people more powers to build these little gullies across the pavement in front of their houses.

And it's going to be put into law through secondary legislation later this autumn.

Excellent.

So that was never taken account of in the analysis.

It's one of those things that the Department for Transport knew about and were talking about in other contexts, but was deliberately left out of the equation with HS2.

And another dimension, David, is that leaders, because we're about leadership listening, leaders set a strategy and then develop plans consistent with that strategy.

And as you and I know, lurking in the background was the um rod eddington study now rod eddington was there to look at transport as i understand it on a broad remit for a future good number of years and he argued that economic returns from high-speed rail in the uk are unlikely to be as large as for investment in some alternative projects that was in his report he also concluded that decisions on specific schemes or policies would need to be informed by detailed appraisals of specific high-speed rail proposals and of appraisals and other policy options for achieving the same objectives.

And I think as an economist, you're going to probably say that First of all, Eddington's strategy was not adhered to.

And also, I suppose, secondly, that from an HS2 point of view, that's where the... rot if you like of the project began to set in

yeah i agree with you about that i mean effectively the focus from the time andrew adonis was transport secretary on hs2 essentially threw eddington out of the window but you'll never find a report from the department for transport which says we're changing our strategy eddington's no longer right and no longer relevant and And everything I've seen over recent years would suggest to me that Eddington is exactly right.

Because if you look at the overall markets, long distance travel isn't increasing.

A four-day operation saw 54 people penalised for using their phones whilst driving.

more than half of the 99 uh total offenses um there so uh and many of these already have people uh already have points on their license um yeah it's it's a tough one uh here because at the moment um the fatal five uh mobile phone use not wearing a seat belt drink and drug driving speeding and careless or dangerous driving really being cracked down at the moment it's a zero tolerance tolerance approach um and if you were pulled over within any of this um then you you were going to get fined uh or or um find yourself in court so um operation tramline has been going for quite a while now hasn't it i think it's um a fair few years now yeah and it keeps uh it keeps going so um And as always, a Department for Transport spokesperson said the crime was unacceptable and tough penalties are in place, as I know, to my own personal cost.

Great questions asked.

Yes.

That's according to new analysis.

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