Leading article: A foolish policy driven by vested interests

From its shrill complaints of persecution, one might have assumed that the UK airports operator, BAA, was having a hard time of it. But far from it apparently. The operator yesterday announced that it has enjoyed its busiest month ever. Some 15 million passengers passed through its seven British airports in July. Elsewhere, the Highways Agency was unveiling plans for a 10-lane superhighway that will run through central England. As a snapshot of the British transport system, this is damning.

Planes and cars are the two most polluting forms of transport. And our cleanest form of mass transport - the train - is being neglected. Last month's transport White Paper was a missed opportunity to expand and improve the railway network. The Transport Secretary, Ruth Kelly, announced plans for new platforms, increased capacity and an upgrade of the signalling system. But this was a triumph of presentation over substance. What the White Paper proposed was mere tinkering compared with the scale of investment and building that is actually required. And the Government's dithering over Crossrail betrayed a fatal lack of commitment to the development of high-speed rail in Britain, an area in which we lag shamefully behind our European peers. Even worse were the proposals for financing these plans. The Government will not be putting any more money into the rail network. Passengers are expected to take up the financial slack. Some train companies have already raised off-peak prices by 20 per cent.

This is lunacy from a public policy perspective. Despite the rise in the international price of fuel in recent years, driving is still significantly cheaper, and vastly more convenient, for passengers than rail travel. It is even cheaper for people to fly within Britain than take the train, which is one of the reasons BAA is doing so well at the moment. In March, British Airways began flights from Gatwick to Newquay in Cornwall, a popular summer holiday location.

Despite paying lip service to the need for an environmentally friendly transport policy, the Government remains hopelessly confused about what measures are necessary to achieve it. The mentality of "predict and provide" still holds sway in Whitehall. This means more roads, more airport terminals and more runways are being planned as demand grows.

Any hints of financial penalties on highly polluting modes of transport such as planes and cars are swiftly stamped on. Ministers seem too scared of the motoring lobby to raise fuel duty significantly on cars. And the airline lobby usually gets its way over aviation fuel duty and airport expansion projects. The Government has even failed to force the private rail operators - over whom they have a larger degree of influence - to improve their service.

This drift cannot be allowed to continue. The Government should start by following the lead of the London Mayor Ken Livingstone who pushed through the Congestion Charge in the teeth of fierce opposition and who yesterday announced a £25 daily charge for those who choose to drive highly-polluting 4x4s through the capital. Ministers then need to strip the hidden subsidies from the aviation and motoring sectors and direct the cash towards our rail infrastructure.

The rail network should be at the core of the national transport system, not at its periphery as at present. It should also be at the forefront of the Government's planning and environmental policy. Until it achieves that status, we must expect the airports to get busier, the roads to become ever more clogged, and our national carbon emissions to continue growing at a dangerous rate.

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