Kelly goes on the web

摘要

Ahead of last week's Labour Party conference, where discussion of transport was limited to a question and answer session on 'sustainable communities', Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly took part in a 'webchat' on September 20. Such events are worth studying because the civil servants preparing the responses are working under pressure in real time. There were two questions on railways. On the perennial subject of electrification, Kelly repeated the argument that the immediate priority is capacity. Within a limited budget 'there are always tough decisions to be made', but electrification 'is certainly not ruled out'. However, this was linked to environmental issues. Kelly repeated the line taken by the rail white paper that 'as the electricity mix changes in the future, there may be a case for electrification as an economic response to environmental considerations and we will keep that under review'.