ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well now, Labour’s Mary Creagh is something of a rising star, as Shadow Environment and Food Secretary she tackled the government head on over the horsemeat scandal but now she has been promoted to the role of Shadow Transport Secretary and she has got another challenge, HS2, the high speed rail line. Her party supports the policy at the moment but a short time ago the former Chancellor, Alistair Darling, said this:

ALISTAIR DARLING: My worry is that this project is so big it will simply suck out resources and you may gain in one part of the country but you’ll lose elsewhere… I really think this is something that needs to be looked at, I understand that while Mary is new she’ll want to be cautious about it before she reaches her judgement but I think there is an opportunity here and I think everyone, government and opposition, because this will stand several parliaments, decisions by several different political parties, we need to get it right and I don't think we’ve got it right at the moment.

DM: Alistair Darling there. Well let’s get Mary Creagh’s response straight away. Well this is the man who as Chancellor green-lit some of the finances for this project, he’s changed his mind. Are you thinking of doing that too?

MARY CREAGH: Well Labour supports the new north-south railway, we’re clear that we think that’s the most cost effective way to increase capacity between the north and London over the next twenty or thirty years but it is clear that under this government the costs have risen, the parliamentary process has been held back and now with the new contingency costs added in we’ve got a budget of almost £50 billion, we really do need to look at that but this new cost …

DM: Well have you got a line in the sand there then because the Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, has talked about this, about the costs and you’ve got 50 billion there as the benchmark and there are some estimates already saying the real cost could be 70 or 80 billion, if it gets to those levels would Labour can it?

MARY CREAGH: Well we have a decision to make over the next six months about the Bill coming forward. We’ll be looking very carefully at the new cost benefit analysis that is due out in the next couple of weeks, this is referring to an older cost benefit analysis that has been out but what we need to make sure is that certain areas of the country are not dis-benefited by HS2 and the government has got to explain to them what infrastructure they’re getting in terms of rail upgrades, in terms of road upgrades so that no area of the country will be…

DM: So you’ll spend even more money. We had that report didn’t we, the KPMG report on HS2 that said okay, places on and near the line will benefit but many of the other places that are further away from it will lose hundreds of millions of pounds.

MARY CREAGH: It’s not about them losing, it’s about the fact that if you build a new railway people choose to live close to it, businesses choose to locate there, people use it more. We’ve had a huge upgrade of Crossrail across London, that hasn’t delivered a great deal of benefit to my constituency of Wakefield but I don’t argue against that because I know it is the capital city and it’s important for the country.

DM: But on the point that the Shadow Chancellor makes about £50 billion, even if it stays at that, Alistair Darling is making a different point. He’s not saying that the costs may rise – well he is saying that as well but he is saying that with that £50 billion you could do so much more elsewhere.

MARY CREAGH: It’s important to remember that the new north-south railway is going to be built alongside other projects so it’s not a choice of either/or, it’s a choice of what is the best way to make sure that we have the capacity on our railway, to make sure that we … we already have 4,000 people a day standing on their way into Birmingham, 5,000 people a day standing on their journey into Euston, that is only going to get worse over the next ten years. We upgraded the west coast mainline, that was supposed to cost three billion, it cost us nine so this patch and mend approach to the railways, this railway was completed 170 years ago …

DM: Okay, so just be as definitive as you can at the moment on HS2, you’re not going to jump into the Darling camp right away as you just told me but do you have an open mind?

MARY CREAGH: Well I’m keen to see that costs are borne down on and I’ve had a meeting with David Higgins about that this week, the new Chairman of HS2, to see how the £42 billion costs can be borne down on and he is going to be looking at that over the months ahead and we will be looking at that alongside him.

DM: Okay, a lot more to talk about, about big transport infrastructure projects and of course third runways, new runways, new airports to deal with the capacity problem. Again we’ve had a volte face on this because previous Labour administrations said that they supported the third runway at Heathrow, the new administration came in and said no, we don’t. Is anything ever going to be built to increase our airport capacity?

MARY CREAGH: Well the Davies Commission has said in its earliest report a couple of weeks ago that they think there is new capacity needed in the south-east and we’ll hear in the middle of December what he’s proposing for the south-east. We’re going to wait for that report, it was set up at our suggestion by this government and we think it’s clear that people ….

DM: But you hear from the airlines that we have to get on with this because it’s going to take a long time, we haven’t even made the decision yet and it’s going to take a long time to build it. We need it as quickly as possible so another open mind here?

MARY CREAGH: An open mind but we actually think we’d like to see the Davies Commission report before the next general election, we think we should have a decision taken before the election and people should be able to vote basis of the party’s position on what their approach is.

DM: But what about the approach you had when you were in government? You did all the research then, thought it was a good idea, why not go back to that position?

MARY CREAGH: Well it’s clear, we are seeing technological changes, we’re seeing environmental improvements around noise and around emissions with aeroplanes and over the next five years we’ll see those technological changes advance further so given that life has moved on, that this government is in, we want to see where we get to in 2015 when that commission report is definitive.

DM: Let’s talk about the way most people get around at the moment, trains first of all and this coming from the East Coast Rail line, some kind of third class – well they say it is more premium economy – would be introduced. If it increases capacity and the way they structure the fares, it gives people more choices isn’t that a good thing?

MARY CREAGH: Well I’m not sure. David Cameron says we’re all in this together but I’m not sure that taking us back to the 50s and introducing third class is the way forward. I mean …

DM: But it’s not really that though is it?

MARY CREAGH: Well it is, it’s rolling out the budget airline model across our railways. East Coast is working well, it will deliver a billion pounds in franchise payments back to the taxpayer by the end of its franchise agreement, by the time the franchise is let and that’s after two failed private sector operators who handed back the keys.

DM: But on that directly, as we understand it, standard class would remain and there’ll be a class introduced between standard and first class but standard class is still there and you would be guaranteed a seat within it. That would be a better thing would it not for rail travellers?

MARY CREAGH: Well people aren’t guaranteed a seat at the moment and I don't know how any franchise operator could guarantee that given the projected increases in rail fare ridership on that line but if there are three classes then people would inevitably brand standard class, it will become third class, that’s absolutely obvious. This East Coast directly operated railways has improved performance, punctuality, passenger satisfaction, good staff relationships, all of those things have been edited out of the government’s franchise document that we saw on Friday and we just think it’s working well, it should be kept as a direct comparator so we can see, we can measure other franchise operators against it. They have improved Wi-Fi, air conditioning and the profit they are making goes back into the service and we think actually rather than money going out as dividends to shareholders, we’d like to see the money reinvested back into railway improvements for passengers and capping fares.

DM: Okay, talk to me about cycling. The government has made much about putting what it estimates to be about £77 million into nationwide cycling projects, would you top that, would you put more in because we all know about the potential benefits of cycling, not just to the economy but to people’s health and to the environment so what’s Labour’s commitment to that?

MARY CREAGH: Well I think if cycling was a drug we’d all be on it. It’s a real wonder drugs, we know the health benefits, the environmental benefits that it has. We want to make sure that cycling is safe and that it’s not just for the Lycra clad lovelies like you and, dare I say, me but …

DM: I wish!

MARY CREAGH: … but it’s for everyone from eight to eighty, and why start at eight, I believe you should start them off at five, but I have some concerns for example about some of the super-highways in London, we have seen a series of fatal accidents on them and I’m very worried about junctions. I am very worried as someone who cycles in London as well as …

DM: So you’d put more money in?

MARY CREAGH: Well I want to see how HGVs, the HGVs are disproportionately involved in fatal cycling accidents and we need to make sure that cyclists and HGVs are not sharing the same road space, so how do we do that? We do that by making sure that the road’s budget has a cycle safety audit – some of it is about better and cleverer planning. When you are doing a new road how are cyclists planned for because the engineers often focused on the cars, they didn’t focus on vulnerable road users.

DM: What about making the cars focus on the bikes? We are one of only five countries in Europe that doesn’t have this strict liability that effectively means that if you hit a cyclist in your car, unless you can prove otherwise, it’s your fault in civil law, one of only five countries in Europe, why don’t we change that?

MARY CREAGH: Well I’ve been riding in London for the last 18 years on and off and I’ve seen driver behaviour change a great deal. Before, if you were in a minority you tended to be less visible, the drivers tended not to slow down, there is more courtesy on the roads now and that has to be a two-way street. I think the cyclists have to obey the red lights, they have to show courtesy to pedestrians and I think education is the way that we do that.

DM: The car is a several ton killing machine potentially to a bike, very few bikes intentionally hit cars. If you just brought in strict liability the drivers would be much more aware about, be very careful around bikes, the damage that can be done. Okay, even if the cyclist wobbles a bit, if it’s your son or daughter going to school they may not be that good on a bike but they don’t want to hit you and if you tell the driver if you do hit them, it’s your fault, wouldn’t that make them more careful?

MARY CREAGH: I have cycled in countries where that is the case and what I’ve observed is it tends to make the cyclists a bit more reckless. I cycled in Amsterdam and I was astonished at the behaviour of some of the cyclists, they were running red lights, they were all over the place and I thought actually this is quite a … I was quite scared by some of the behaviour that was going on there so I’m not convinced but obviously we are in the process of developing our next manifesto, the policy process is on-going. I can tell you that several, many people in my party share your desire and it is something that we will look at, genuinely.

DM: Okay, there’s a lot to look at, come back and report to us when you have considered. Mary Creagh there, thank you very much indeed, the Shadow Transport Secretary.