Lib Dem Manifesto Says Next to Nothing about Active Travel

The Liberal Democrat manifesto for the 2024 General Election has next to nothing to say about active travel. On transport, the party appears to be focused largely on electric cars.

Published today, the theme of the manifesto is ‘a fair deal’.

Foreword by Ed Davey

The Foreword by Ed Davey highlights the ‘fair deal’ theme.

‘Every vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote to elect a strong local champion who will fight for a fair deal for you and your community’.

foreword to the liberal democrat manifesto 2024

Active Travel

As with other sections of the manifesto, transport is split into two: headlines, and more detail.

The transport headlines part has one positive sentence about cycling and walking.

‘Transform how people travel by creating new cycling and walking networks with a new nationwide active travel strategy’.

active transport in transport headlines

The ‘more detail’ part contains further ideas on electric cars, motorists, bus services, rail, public transport and flying – but not a word about active travel.

As a result, the public has no idea what would be in the new nationwide active travel strategy the Liberal Democrats say they want.

Other Transport

Electric Cars

The Lib Dems’ manifesto focuses heavily on electric cars. The party wants to reintroduce 2030 as the phase-out date for the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles.

Making it easy and cheap to charge electric vehicles is stressed, with more charging points including on residential streets, and cutting VAT on public charging to 5%.

There is no mention of reducing vehicle miles travelled, even though that is essential to the UK meeting its climate targets.

Making travel by electric car easy and cheap – likely a good deal cheaper than by ICE vehicle – would increase vehicle miles travelled. That would mean increased congestion and road danger, and would do nothing to tackle the public health crisis from diseases caused by inactivity.

Rail

The manifesto suggests freezing rail fares and simplifying ticketing, and further electrifying Britain’s rail network.

It also puts forward the idea of a new Railway Agency, which would help join up the industry, hold train companies to account, and reform the broken fare system.

The Lib Dems want to review the cancellation of the northern leg of HS2 to see if it can be delivered in a way that provides value for money.

Buses

The party would boost bus services by giving local authorities more powers to franchise services, by supporting rural bus services, and by maintaining the £2 cap on bus fares. It would also encourage a switch to zero-emission buses.

Flying

Flying is perhaps the one area where the Lib Dems are prepared to take the difficult steps needed to decarbonise transport.

The headlines include:

‘Invest in research and development to make the UK the world leader in zero-carbon flight, and take steps to reduce demand for flying’.

headline from the transport section of the manifesto

Zero-carbon flight is a flight of fancy for the moment, so the key element here is reducing demand for flying.

This is backed up by the detail section, which includes the following proposals:

• tax frequent fliers more and occasional fliers less
• super tax on private jets
• airlines to show carbon emissions for domestic flights
• ban short domestic flights where a direct rail option takes less than 2.5h
• moratorium on airport expansion

Climate Change and Energy

There are some good proposals on climate change and energy.

One of these is a home energy upgrade programme, with free insulation and heat pumps for people on low incomes. The manifesto also talks about ‘a rooftop solar revolution’, with more attractive incentives for solar panel installation.

Other headlines include:

• appoint a Chief Secretary for Sustainability in the Treasury, to ensure that the economy is sustainable
• establish a new Net Zero Delivery Authority to coordinate action across government departments and work with devolved administrations and councils
• establish national and local citizens’ assemblies on climate change
• restore the UK’s role as a global leader on climate change