Criticism from KPMG for Chancellor’s summer budget

KPMG has criticised the UK Chancellor for lack of investment in regional transport infrastructure in his Summer Budget 2015. Chris Hearld, chairman for KPMG in the North, said: “Once again we have seen the Northern Powerhouse being a key plank to the Chancellor’s Budget announcement. We have always maintained that for the Northern Powerhouse to succeed, all parts of the region need to be brought on board, so it was encouraging to hear that following the lead set by Manchester, devolution deals are in the
July 9, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
1981 KPMG has criticised the UK Chancellor for lack of investment in regional transport infrastructure in his Summer Budget 2015.

Chris Hearld, chairman for KPMG in the North, said: “Once again we have seen the Northern Powerhouse being a key plank to the Chancellor’s Budget announcement. We have always maintained that for the Northern Powerhouse to succeed, all parts of the region need to be brought on board, so it was encouraging to hear that following the lead set by Manchester, devolution deals are in the pipeline for the likes of Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield.”
 
However, he said it was disappointing that no further announcements were made regarding investments in regional transport infrastructure. While the introduction of an Oyster card system across the North is a nice gesture in principal, he believes it will do nothing to alleviate the lack of capacity and very little to improve the connectivity on the region’s ever-crumbling rail network.
 
James Stamp, head of transport at KPMG UK also commented on the Chancellor’s commitment to invest in UK roads. He noted that in his last budget, the Chancellor announced a major road investment program worth US$23 billion. The Summer Budget included a promise to ‘ring fence’ the vehicle excise duty, or road tax, providing some clarity about where funding for the ambitious road projects will be found.

However, Stamp said, “We note that while road tax raises around US$9 billion per year, this is dwarfed by income collected from fuel duty which is around US$41.5 billion. We believe that more of this income should be reinvested in roads and transport infrastructure in line with the Chancellor’s statement that money raised from drivers should be spent on the roads they drive on.”

Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Driver training saves lives, increases profits, reduces costs
    February 3, 2012
    An innovative UK Government initiative on work-related driver training has resulted in astonishing success, not only in terms of government objectives, but also in substantial cost-benefits for companies and public sector authorities participating in the scheme: they save lives and increase profits/reduce costs Here, we present an overview of the initiative and, overleaf, provide a detailed cost-benefit analysis which amply illustrates why it has been enthusiastically embraced by industry and the public sec
    Read More
  • Driver training saves lives, increases profits, reduces costs
    February 6, 2012
    An innovative UK Government initiative on work-related driver training has resulted in astonishing success, not only in terms of government objectives, but also in substantial cost-benefits for companies and public sector authorities participating in the scheme: they save lives and increase profits/reduce costs Here, we present an overview of the initiative and, overleaf, provide a detailed cost-benefit analysis which amply illustrates why it has been enthusiastically embraced by industry and the public sec
    Read More
  • Innermost thoughts
    February 27, 2012
    At risk of being accused of going on like a broken record (and, perhaps, mystifying those readers of the post-vinyl generation with my choice of expression), I want to come back to... well, everything but the technology.
    Read More
  • West Midlands pilots the UK’s first MaaS
    November 14, 2017
    Mobility-as-a-Service is being piloted in the UK’s second largest metropolitan area and will shortly be opened to the travelling public. A fully operational Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) offering is being piloted in the West Midlands region of the UK. Covering seven local authorities which make up the West Midlands metropolitan area and population of 2.8 million, the service is being provided through a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), Finnish company MaaS Global
    Read More

Highlighted Content