Richard Turner - Chief Executive, Freight Transport Association

The ability for people and goods to move around the UK economically and efficiently is a prerequisite of 21st Century life. Despite the views of some, people are not content to stay at home only consuming goods and services produced locally. A return to the village economy is neither practical nor desirable. People want to travel and want to enjoy food, clothes, electrical equipment, furniture, books, etc. from all over the world.

And why shouldn’t they? In 2005, we have created a global civilisation with worldwide social interaction and an international economy.

But everyone knows that, here in the UK, there is a major fly in this particular ointment.

We are operating the fourth largest economy in the world but we spend less on transport than anyone else in Europe. In truth, we have a road and rail network more akin to the middle of the 20th Century than 2005.

We have had years and years of inadequate investment in transport. Government after government have failed to devote sufficient resources towards providing the high quality of transport infrastructure needed to sustain and grow our economy and chosen lifestyle.

There is now a great concern that we have let things slip so far that it is impossible to catch up. A fear that a creaking rail network, ports lacking the capacity to meet demand and a congested road network are all we can expect. A fear that the increase in affluence, greater mobility and the doubling of the economy can only mean longer journey times, falling reliability and increased costs. That business now needs to unravel hard its supply chain economies, and build in more stock, costs and waste.

The Freight Transport Association, which represents the interests of UK industry, does not accept that it needs to be this way. FTA says that, although the Government’s 10 Year Transport Plan has, so far, not made the progress we all wanted, nevertheless, there are actions that can and should be taken. A matter not so much of ‘can we afford it’ but more like ‘can we afford not to?’.

It is vital that the Government must increase its investment in our transport infrastructure. Road users in the UK pay £43bn each year in tax. But so little of it is invested back into transport to improve service or even maintain reliability. At present, just 25 pence in every pound of tax collected by road users is re-invested in transport. And only 10 pence is spent on roads themselves. In the UK, we pay the highest road taxes in Europe, yet in return, the Government gives us one of the poorest road and rail networks; it simply will not do.

Although FTA is speaking for industry, the necessity of improving the transport scene is of greatest importance to all of us – the whole nation, the whole economy, the whole population. Pretty much everything we consume, every day of our lives, is a product of a rail or, more usually a road, journey. Delays and unreliability as a result of our poor infrastructure mean higher costs and poorer services for all of us. Kicking transport up the political and economic agenda is in all of our interests.