Corbyn’s Labour would bring Britain grinding to a halt
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This morning Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary admitted Labour
would slash funding for road projects to fund a giveaway on rail
fares. Nearly two thirds of journeys in Britain are made by people
in cars, compared to 3% by rail, yet speaking to 5 Live, Andy
McDonald refused to say which road projects would be scrapped under
Labour. Speaking on the Today programme, he also refused to
rule out scrapping improvements to the A303 A30 A358 roads in the
South-West,...Request free trial
This morning Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary admitted Labour would slash funding for road projects to fund a giveaway on rail fares. Nearly two thirds of journeys in Britain are made by people in cars, compared to 3% by rail, yet speaking to 5 Live, Andy McDonald refused to say which road projects would be scrapped under Labour. Speaking on the Today programme, he also refused to rule out scrapping improvements to the A303 A30 A358 roads in the South-West, upgrades to the A1 North, and the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon. Today was also the start of a 27 day Christmas strike by the militant RMT union, who bankrolled Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign to be elected Leader of the Labour Party. Speaking to Sky News this morning, Andy McDonald backed a return to the secondary picketing of the 1970s. Jeremy Corbyn wants to rip up trade union laws which means that there will be a huge increase in strike action if he is elected. Commenting, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “Corbyn’s Labour would bring Britain grinding to a halt. This morning they admitted they would make huge cuts to the roads budget and restart their ideological war on the motorist. The vast majority of people in this country rely on their cars and drive every single day. The public will not be impressed that it is now official Labour party policy to increase the number of traffic jams that they will have to endure. Corbyn's Labour needs to be straight with people about which road upgrades they plan to cut and who will suffer the most. “Labour’s militant union baron donors are going to start the longest ever strike action on our railways today - causing misery for commuters. This is just a taste of things to come if Corbyn is elected as he wants to make it even easier for his trade union chums to go on strike. It is clear that if he wins the election Jeremy Corbyn would cause gridlock on our roads and our railways. He will also jam up our political system with his plans for another two chaotic referendums on the EU and Scotland. A vote for Corbyn is a vote for gridlock and delay - a vote for Boris Johnson's Conservatives is a vote for getting Brexit done and getting the country moving again." ENDS
Notes to Editors
· 62 per cent of journeys in Britain are made by car, compared to only 3 per cent by rail (DfT, Transport Statistics 2018, link).
· Labour would repeal trade union laws – lifting the ban on secondary picketing and backing strikes wherever they occur, making life harder for commuters right across the country. John McDonnell has said he would let UK workers go on ‘sympathy strikes’ with strikers anywhere in the world. The cost to the economy could be in the billions. In the rail industry alone, strikes wiped half a billion pounds off London’s economy in a single year (Evening Standard, 22 February 2017, link; Daily Mail, 22 December 2018, link).
· Shadow Transport Secretary Andy McDonald refused to say on 5 Live which road projects Labour would cut
STUDIO: I just wondered if you'd looked specifically and decided which road project you're going to take this money from? ANDY MCDONALD: No we haven't
STUDIO: But it goes towards quite a lot of big road projects and programmes that have already been announced so which of them will no longer go ahead now you will be using the money for rail fares? ANDY MCDONALD: Well there's a £30 billion programme announced but it hasn't been allocated to any particular projects. But there are a whole host of funds available throughout government in the housing infrastructure fund and national productivity investment fund and growth funds allocated to road building... STUDIO: There are quite a lot of specific projects, let me give you an example of some of them: in the south-west the A303 A30 A358 corridor, this is a long-term programme to transform this route into an expressway going almost to Lands End, does that go ahead under Labour? ANDY MCDONALD: Well I want to look at these plans because I'm aware... STUDIO: So that's a maybe? ANDY MCDONALD: I am wanting to look at those plans because I'm aware that some of the preparations and planning for those have not been a perfect and I want to take an assessment of exactly where we're up to... STUDIO: So that's a maybe. What about the A1 North, the billion that have been earmarked towards improvement and maintenance works on that, does that go ahead under Labour? ANDY MCDONALD: The A1 North has been long talked about and right across that stretch there are huge sections... STUDIO: Does it go ahead under Labour? ANDY MCDONALD: (Pause) There are huge sections that have got major road safety problems and they do need to be addressed by investment in it... STUDIO: I think that's also then a maybe for people living in that area. The A14, more than 1 billion to upgrade the stretch between Cambridge and Huntingdon, does that go ahead under Labour? ANDY MCDONALD: ...A595 in Cumbria which is nothing more than a track through a farmyard, that has to be resolved, and we're not talking about major amounts of money there. Look let me just...I'm not going to go through the entire country, but what I will say is.... STUDIO: But I gave you some examples. It's important, there will be people... ANDY MCDONALD: ...We cannot road build our way out of the climate emergency. That is critical. We need to make the decision are we serious about addressing the climate crisis or are we not? And if we continue to build up motorways and what you do with motorways is that what happens is you fill them up as soon as you build them. So we've got to have an intelligent approach to all these issues, and we will look at all of those plans very very carefully indeed.
Kay Burley: Do you support secondary picketing in that regard Andy McDonald: Not just conflict and confrontation. But I will always support the right of working people to withdraw their labour. I think we should work to avoid Kay Burley: But would you support secondary picketing Andy McDonald: these conflicts and that is Kay Burley: We're slightly out of time Mr McDonald and I have allowed you to speak significantly but I just want to press you on this matter if I may, would you support secondary picketing in order to support these workers Andy McDonald: I've responded Kay, is it the right of working people to withdraw their labour but we should avoid those conflicts and those confrontations by better industrial relations. By doing that we can avoid these sorts of strikes. They are unnecessary, this one could be avoided and if they would do the same as other train operating companies have done, this matter would be over with in a second. Kay Burley: I think I'm going to take that as a yes Mr McDonald, thank you for joining us on the programme.
· Labour have repeatedly opposed road-building:
o Shadow Transport Secretary Andy McDonald described the Government’s decision to launch the biggest ever cash injection for roads as ‘the wrong decision’. He said: ‘ramping up spending on major roads is the wrong decision’ (ITV News, 27 October 2018, link).
o Jeremy Corbyn opposes road-building programmes. ‘I’ve been involved in opposing the very large road building programmes in Britain in favour of rail and more efficient forms of transport’ (Greenpeace Interview, 6 August 2015, archived).
o Shadow Transport Minister Rachael Maskell described road investment as a ‘catastrophe’. She said: ‘UK roads killed or seriously injured 27,000 people, including 2,000 children, last year. It is the most dangerous mode of travel. Why does the Secretary of State not invest in developing a sustainable, integrated public transport strategy, including active travel, as Labour would, instead of this catastrophe of a road building project?’ (Hansard, 13 June 2019, link).
· Labour would already pledged to take money away from improving our roads to fund senseless giveaways and renationalise bus services. Labour have said that their plans to introduce free bus travel for all under 25s and the Bus Transformation Fund would be funded by using Vehicle Excise Duty, which is currently used to fund the National Road Fund and other road building schemes (The Telegraph, 12 April 2018, link; DfT, News Story, 5 July 2017, link).
· Labour war on motorists would take two thirds of cars of the road. A barrage of punitive anti-car measures planned by the Labour Party will force almost two-thirds of all car journeys off the roads, according to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps. Measures being considered by Mr Corbyn’s party include fuel duty hikes, road pricing, workplace parking charges, reducing motorway speed limits and cancelling new road schemes (Express, 12 November 2019, link).
Labour have signalled that they need to hike up fuel duty and axe all road improvements to meet their infeasible 2030 net zero target. They have said they would impose ‘demand management’ measures to force drivers to cut 60 per cent of journeys (The Sun, 12 November 2019, link; based on Labour Party, Thirty by 2030, 24 October 2019)
Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour is in the pocket of the RMT
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