And another thing…

THE REAL level of Conservative support for Crossrail was always a subject of speculation, whatever their front bench said publicly. 

So I guess today’s bid to scrap the Business Rate Supplement Bill should have been expected. But so much for the Tories wanting to decentralise government!

As it stands, the Bill will allow local authorities to levy up to two per cent extra on business rates for specific capital projects – subject to a vote of the business community.

So let’s recap: large capital projects? No. Allowing local authorities to decide their own priorities? No. Give local businesses a say in whether they want a capital project to go ahead? No.

No Crossrail, no third runway, no local democracy AND they still want to slice five billion of next year’s budget.

Coming soon: The Longest Suicide Note in History, Part 2

I WAS genuinely surprised when Theresa Villiers confirmed during her party’s conference that the Conservatives would oppose a third runway at Heathrow.

Surprised because this is one promise that simply won’t be kept, and she should know that; and because it flies in the face of Cameron’s valiant efforts to depict his party as serious about government.

Over at Conservative Home today, Theresa has been defending her policy, presumably in part a response to her own backbench colleague, David Wilshire, who used the same site to blast the policy earlier this week. I’ve spoken to one senior Tory front bencher who shares my utter bemusement at this policy and I doubt if he is alone.

Certainly the Tories’ traditional core constituency, business leaders, are appalled by Villiers’ suggestion that the need for a third runway could be offset by the building of a new high-speed rail network. High-speed rail will, I’m sure, have an important part to play in this country’s transport strategy in the future. But to claim that it will obviate the need for more runway capacity at Heathrow is over-optimistic at best, self-delusional at worst.

How could high-speed trains reduce demand for international travel? In fact, while Heathrow operates at 99 per cent capacity at the moment, best estimates suggest the kind of high-speed network now advocated by the Tories could reduce that by just two per cent.

An expanded Heathrow is necessary because without it, international travellers will vote with their executive club cards and turn their backs, not just on Heathrow, but on UK plc. We will not be able to maintain London’s position as Europe’s financial capital while our biggest and most important airport is choking to death.

But the policy would claim another victim which has so far been ignored: Crossrail.

Crossrail, due to open in 2017, will provide a new commuter link between Maidenhead and Heathrow to the west of London to the City of London and onwards to Kent in the east. It is not only essential to the economic prosperity of London and the rest of the country – it is also very, very expensive. It will cost more than £15 billion, with the taxpayer meeting about a third of the cost and the remaining two thirds being met through a supplement on London’s business rates and by contributions from the capital’s financial institutions, who see the new link as vital to their future prosperity.

The financial package is robust, though inevitably there are those who remain unconvinced. But how robust will the package be if the airport to which Crossrail will provide a vital link is to be left to wither on the vine? How much value will Crossrail itself add to London if Heathrow cannot expand and cannot compete? And how willing will the City be to pay for a link to Yesterday’s Airport?

The real motivation behind this Tory transport policy – one of the few that the front bench team have come up with after Ms Villers’ 18 months in charge – is votes. Or more specifically, a clutch of marginal seats to the west of London that the Tories need to win in order to have a chance of forming the next government.

What a handicap for any new government to have to carry in its first months in power: a manifesto commitment to eroding a central pillar of our economic success, a commitment which would have serious – possibly terminal – consequences for the most ambitious and expensive rail scheme since the end of the war.

Which is why it’s a promise that simply won’t find its way into the Tory manifesto at the next election. Because to include it would be to invite the (justified) accusation that Cameron isn’t serious about growing the UK economy.

But if this policy is to be ditched, it’s surely very likely that a new policy will have to be developed and promoted by a new Shadow Transport Secretary.

I DON’T, as a rule, blog about my work at the Department for Transport. That’s because the first rule of DfT is: don’t talk about the DfT; the second rule of DfT: don’t talk about the DfT.

Having said that, the only reason I was in London today was to take the Crossrail Bill through its final stages in Parliament. The Crossrail Bill is now The Crossrail Act. I’m dead chuffed. But I can’t talk about it.

Recess may have started, but I’ll still be working in Glasgow East tomorrow and Thursday.

Further to my recent posting about Boris Johnson and Crossrail, I noticed when I was checking who had voted on the Second Reading of the Crossrail Bill, that four SNP MPs – Angus Robertson, Pete Wishart, Michael Weir and Stewart Hosie – voted against.

So much for the SNP principle of not voting on devolved matters. If, however, our secessionist friends believed they should vote on it because significant sums of money being spent on the project by the Treasury would have an impact on the Scottish block grant, then, of course they are right. Welcome to Unionism!

Mind you, why they voted against is a mystery if that was indeed their motivation. The extra capital spend on Crossrail will be “Barnettized”, as it were, so that Scotland’s block grant is increased by a proportional amount.

Curiouser and curiouser.

The Mayor of London is worried that government the government isn’t committed to Crossrail. This is absurd on two important levels. First: it’s absolutely committed, and there’s no reason to conclude otherwise. The Crossrail Bill is making good progress through Parliament and should get Royal Assent soon.

Second, and more importantly, Boris never supported Crossrail as an MP.

According to The Public Whip, Boris didn’t vote on the Crossrail Bill when it was first presented to the Commons in July 2005. And on the many occasions since, where I have had to pilot the Bill through its Commons stages – at two “additional provisions” debates, public bill committee sessions and Report and Third reading – Boris didn’t turn up. Not once. Never, on a single occasion in the Commons, did Bojo ever express an opinion, or vote one way or the other, on the most important infrastructure project that London has seen for generations.

Perhaps he was too busy to concern himself with such trivialities. Whatever the reason, it undermines his claim that he had a long-term ambition to be Mayor of London. Boris is not stupid; he would have known that a strong commitment to Crossrail could only have helped his mayoral bid. The fact that he never showed an interest in such an important project confirms he had no notion at all of standing before ‘Dave’ went on bended knee.