As George Osborne’s austerity programme continues, Transport for London is still paying the price, with more cuts announced in the Autumn Statement.
Yet at the same there are ambitious plans underway for the capital’s transport infrastructure, including making some of the underground’s services 24-hour.
With this conflict high on the agenda as London’s Mayoral race hots up, Labour’s Gareth Thomas will today raise his concerns in a Westminster Hall debate.
He tells PoliticsHome: “My main concern is that Transport for London has had its funding cut over the last ten years from about £3bn per year to help its year on year finances in 2010, to nothing by 2020. So it will have lost in that time effectively £3bn a year by the end of the decade.
“My worry is that it will exacerbate the pressure on TFL to put fares up. My constituents in outer London have seen fares rising considerably over the last decade under Boris, in some cases by as much as 60%.
“So, I am keen to avoid any more enthusiasm from Mayors or finance directors for fare rises. Equally I am really conscious that London’s population is growing, so there needs to be more investment in the tube.
“Much of that year on year grant was used for investment and there is a concern that big projects like the night tube or some of the signalling upgrades or some of the access issues – making stations accessible by giving them lifts for disabled people and young families with buggies – might be delayed even further and that is a real concern.
“Equally there is a worry that in order to make up the shortfall there may be further reductions in staff, which could mean security is put at risk on the underground.”
The security risks that the Harrow West MP refers to are largely petty crimes such as fare dodging and harassment, but he is also looking into how simultaneous cuts to the British Transport Police budget could pose a much greater threat to passenger safety.
Terrorism
As to whether there is a danger of terrorist incidents as a result of the changes he replies: “Certainly. I have got to ask questions about funding for the British Transport Police as well.
“There are reports that suggest that the British Transport Police haven’t been protected in the way that some other areas of policing have. So, I don’t know whether there will be a knock on impact in that sense.
“You need people on the underground keeping an eye out for bad behaviour to reassure people if there is a problem, and there is a concern that more and more staff are being taken out of the underground.”
Deficit
Although Mr Thomas concedes that there must be cuts to public spending, in this policy area he suggests that fiscal devolution could help to maintain much needed investment.
He says: “Of course you have got to get the deficit down but it is all about how you do it. The worry is that Transport for London is such a crucial part of the nation’s infrastructure that actually if you put investment at risk then people’s experience of travelling in London will be very poor.
“One of the things that I will be arguing for is that there should be more fiscal devolution to the Mayor. So, you might be able to make up some of the shortfall in financing through devolving to the London Mayor all of the money that is raised through vehicle excise duty by Londoners who own cars, which potentially, I’m told, is about half a billion pounds.
“I have long thought the stamp duty land tax should be devolved to London as well. I think it’s good that business rates are but whenever you invest in a new station or an extended bit of line land values shoot up.
“It seems to me that if property taxes were controlled in London you would have a chance of making sure that that extra value that is created goes back into the public transport network to invest elsewhere as well.
“If they are going to reduce funding, and I worry that it is going to be too far and too fast, there ought to be more clarity about fiscal devolution.”