Thread by @faisalislam

Labour rail fares announcement is important to look at, politically, economically, fiscally...

Basically spending the money this Government earmarked for massive road building plan... on buses, free bus passes for under 25s, some cycling, and now cheaper train fares...

Last year’s Budget, the entire Vehicle Excise Duty receipts were earmarked as Highways England’s Budget for major roads - Motorways and A -roads, OBR has 37.5 million cars paying, giving revenue from £6.5bn up to nearly £8bn a year over this Parliament...

Labour have already earmarked VED cash for existing announcements -
Free Bus travel for under 25s - £1.4bn a year
Bus Transformation Fund - £1.3bn a year
Revenue element of cycling package - £2.5bn a year

Cutting regulated rail fares 33% - £1.5bn a year

pretty much all of VED.

So the Conservatives say that this is more than the total VED being raised, Labour say that the costs are for the end of Parliament... other factor here is that it is only English VED that is hypothecated into roads...

Broad picture - no money left from VED for roads..

So this was meant as the £25bn funding for the second Road Investment Strategy (RIS2) - which in research phase includes Northern Trans Pennine, Trans Pennine Tunnel, A1 east, Oxford to Cambridge, M25 SW quadrant..

That said actual RIS2 was due by year end, & hasn’t happened yet

So there’s very little Labour funding for new major roads/ motorways - though as it is capital spending, it could be under their rules, funded by borrowing, as the VED money (current revenue) is diverted to buses, trains and cycles (current spend)...

The bigger picture, of course, is that Labour policy is much smaller promised investment in new major roads than Conservatives, and using the £25bn taxes levied over Parliament on English vehicle owners, instead, to fund greener forms of transport - cycling, trains, buses...