Darling's the driving force

Darling’s the driving force

Children's Express grills the new Transport Secretary about young people's hottest issue. This article appeared in a special pullout in the Daily Mirror on UK Youth Parliament 2002.

Alistair Darling, the new Transport Secretary, gives new meaning to the phrase 'middle of the road'.

He uses the word 'balance' a lot when explaining his policies, so radical ideas may be too much to hope for. But perhaps he needs more than two months in the job.

His job is one of the hardest in government - and one of the most important to the members of the UK Youth Parliament.

MYPs at the UKYP gave public transport in the UK the thumbs down. Picture © Neville Williams.

Transport is one of their top priorities. City Members of the Youth Parliament (MYPs) want to tackle congestion, and safety for cyclists and pedestrians; rural members would just like to see a bus more than once a day.

And most MYPs want a national strategy to deliver discounted public transport to everyone in education.

Forty per cent of students in rural areas say access to public transport is a factor in choosing how long they stay in education.

Some young people living in isolated areas find their choices extremely limited.

For city kids like us, the idea of waiting half an hour for a bus seems hard to grasp - never mind half a day.

Darling is more sympathetic - many of his family live in rural Scotland. But he doesn't think laying on more buses is the solution.

"The difference between one service a day and two isn't actually that much. You could perhaps for the same money get a much better designed service for what people actually want."

Instead he says there needs to be a different set of solutions for people living in the countryside.

"I'm firmly of the view there are some parts of the country where trying to maintain a conventional bus service is never going to meet the actual demand of people living there. That's why you have to look at alternatives."

His alternatives include minibuses, taxis, and even using postal delivery services to carry people as well as mail.

On the cost of travel, Darling refuses to go as far as promising nationwide discounts for students. He believes local areas should make their own decisions.

"I firmly believe, especially on buses, that we have to provide the means," he says, "but designing the pattern of or deciding who's going to get a discount is best done locally."

So it looks like MYPs will have to take their campaigns to their local councils.

City MYPs' concerns are more about their safety on public transport, and on the streets.

Darling points to new, modern train carriages, better lighting and more closed circuit television as signs that safety is improving.

But he also favours an old-fashioned approach: bobbies on the beat.

"The presence of police around the place can help," he said. "Just the fact that you know the police are about can be a big, big help."

Of course someone will have to fix the mistrust many young people feel towards the police before that will help them feel any safer.

He also accepts what a difficult time young cyclists have: "If you're made to cycle in among cars and lorries you're constantly fearful you're going to be run off the road or they'll squash you."

He points out the steady growth in cycle lanes over the last twenty years.

But he told us more than once that investment in transport can take a long time to show results.

As young people we don't like waiting - by the time we see the improvements in transport, we won't be young people any more.

Perhaps that is why projects like the Youth Parliament are taking off - we want to try to bring about change more quickly.

Darling supports the UKYP. "Some young people either couldn't give a damn or find it all too depressing," he says. "But there are a hell of a lot of young people who are clearly motivated, hold extremely strong views and do something about it."

Not that he wants to give young people any real power. "Basically there can only be one parliament in the country.

"Everybody is equal, we all vote and decide rightly or wrongly who we're going to elect and a government is formed."

Not that young people actually have a vote.

"What got me into politics," Darling says, "wasn't anybody telling me to. I just became interested in politics because I questioned what was going on around me. Then I said to myself, 'well if I want to do something about this, what do I do?' There's no point sitting in front of the telly in the armchair saying 'That's terrible'."

He's not keen for the government to get too involved in engaging young people in politics.

Youth interest in politics may have hit a low point - at the last election, it's estimated that only 39 per cent of young adults cast their vote - but Darling finds it hard to see how government can turn that around. For him, it's not governments that engage people.

"When people get angry or concerned about things they find a way to organise, they find a way of articulating what they think. What gets people going is themselves, rather than me telling them to do it."

He could almost be talking about the UK Youth Parliament. But youth representation is not his main concern - Mr Darling has a huge job to face sorting out Britain's transport problems.

"This country is quite small," he says. "The transport solutions of the future cannot be to pour concrete over large parts of England's green and pleasant land."

Perhaps we don't need radical ideas from the government. Maybe we just need the policies they already have to be delivered. And perhaps - just perhaps - Alistair Darling is the man to do it.

About the team

This story was edited by Camille Noreiga, 17, with Neil Hampton, 15. It was published in the Daily Mirror as part of a special Children's Express pull-out on the UK Youth Parliament.

For more information on the UKYP, visit www.ukyouthparliament.org.uk

In Wales, www.funkydragon.org

In Northern Ireland, www.the-hub-ni.com

In Scotland, www.scottishyouthparliament.org.uk