Following the results of the UK General Election which took place on 4th July the change of administration of course means a complete change of personnel with the Department for Transport who will be responsible, amongst many other things, for the future direction of light rail across the country.
As was expected the Secretary of State for Transport is Louise Haigh who is MP for Sheffield Heeley and has been an MP since May 2015.
She will be joined in the department by:
- Lord Hendy – Minister of State: Rail Minister
- Simon Lightwood (MP for Wakefield since 2022) – Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State: Local Transport
- Lilian Greenwood (MP for Nottingham South since 2024) – Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State: Future of Roads
- Mike Kane (MP for Wythenshaw and Sale East since 2024) – Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State: Aviation, Maritime and Security
Based on previous its probably no great surprise to see no specific mention of light rail included in any of those titles but presumably it will come under the remit of Local Transport.
Lousie Haigh has already outlined her five priorities and again its probably no surprise that light rail has no specific mention there either as there are considered to be bigger priorities at the moment. The strategic priorities are:
- Improving performance on the railways and driving forward rail reform
- Improving bus services and growing usage across the country
- Transforming infrastructure to work for the whole country, promoting social mobility and tackling regional inequality
- Delivering greener transport
- Better integrating transport network
There can be hope that some of these will include light rail but as always it’s a case of wait and see and also to see whether there is any real funding available to make the big projects happen.