Corbyn’s bus passes for the young are a mirage

By siphoning funds away from transport upgrades, Labour would reduce jobs available to the under-25s

One of my first bosses gave me a few words of advice early in my career. “If it looks too good to be true,” he said, “it almost certainly is.” This week Santa Corbyn came along again. In 2017 it was a plan to scrap student fees and write off outstanding debt, all paid for by extra taxes. Of course it proved a mirage. This week it was free bus passes for everyone under the age of 25, but only on buses run by your local council, funded by scrapping the National Roads Fund, which gets its money from vehicle excise duty.

It sounds so simple. Unfortunately, it is part of an economic strategy of hostility to employers and the jobs they create that would destroy the prospects of that same generation of under-25s.

Since 2015 we have been investing vehicle duty in the National Roads Fund. It’s part of tens of billions of pounds being spent on a long-term upgrade of our transport system, including improved motorways, bypasses, new dual carriageways, plus new rail services like Crossrail, and expanded tram systems in places like Manchester and Birmingham.

These are not vanity projects. They are essential to a modern economy. Visit any of the fastest growing parts of the world and you will find investment in infrastructure. We’re doing the same here. But axing the National Roads Fund and spending the money on bus passes means cancelling dozens of projects that are designed to get Britain moving and, crucially, to attract investment and jobs for that generation of under-25s. So no more dualling of the A303 to the south west. No more dualling of the A1 in the north east. No new Thames crossing to ease the jams at Dartford. No more Whitehaven Relief Road to unlock the potential of West Cumbria, or much-needed upgrades to routes across the Pennines. And dozens more.

That’s only part of the problem. An economic strategy built around hiking taxes for business means one thing: fewer jobs. Back in 2010, when Labour left office, youth unemployment was almost a million and rising. Since then it has almost halved.

Today, for most, things are very different. I do not believe it is any coincidence that as we have brought down taxes on business, so the number of people those businesses hire has gone up and up, and unemployment has come down and down.

As we have reduced unnecessary red tape and regulation, these businesses have flourished. That healthy reduction will continue as we exit the European Union – but not under Labour, who want to hike corporation tax from 19 to 26 per cent, who want to repeal laws against unnecessary strikes and who want old-fashioned rent controls which even the charity Shelter says could harm the very people on low incomes they’re meant to help.

Ah, say Labour – but we can borrow hundreds of billions of pounds more, go on a spending spree and all will be well. Well, I say just look at the countries which borrow as much as Labour wants – countries like Italy and Spain, where youth unemployment is three times as high as it is here.

There are some simple economic realities in today’s world. If you take a balanced approach to managing an economy, as we have done since 2010, if you only regulate when you have to and not when you feel like it, if you only tax as much as is absolutely necessary, if you invest in things that help attract investment – like a better road network – then you can succeed.

But if you send a message to the private sector that it is not wanted here, if you argue that government can do things better, if you threaten to confiscate companies’ assets and barely compensate them, then the result will be straightforward: investors, entrepreneurs and, crucially, jobs will go elsewhere. If you threaten to hike taxes on people who are successful in life, who already pay the majority of our tax revenues, then don’t be surprised if they find somewhere else to go. If you stop investing in a modern road system to give an unaffordable electoral bung to new voters, then the investors who could create great jobs for them will be doing so for the younger generation in another country instead.

It is free enterprise and the determination to succeed which generates opportunity and wealth for our society, and in doing so provides the money we need to deliver the high quality public services that we all want. Once again, Labour is offering a mirage. Something for everyone, and no cost to anyone. Of course, it doesn’t work like that. Under Labour, jobs would go and everyone would be poorer. And those young people would have free bus passes to get them to the job centre.