Institutional arrangements - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 155

significance across a range of Government activities. For example, in the first term of
the New Labour Government a Social Exclusion Unit was formed within the Cabinet
Office whilst an Urban Policy Unit was located within the then DETR (Department of
Transport, Environment and the Regions).
Changes in the structure of Central Government are normally made after a general
election and at other times when ministerial responsibilities are being reshuffled . This
provides another clue as to the reasoning behind the particular arrangement adopted
at any one time, namely to define and distribute the offices of State amongst the most
senior members of the governing party in a way which will both utilise their talents
and satisfy their egos!
The treatment of transport over the past decade provides evidence of these factors.
The bringing together of the Departments of the Environment and Transport to form
DETR after New Labour's 1997 election victory fulfilled a number of objectives. It
appeared to signal a policy objective of ending the rather narrow, road-building pre-
occupations of the formerly separate Department of Transport. At the same time
it created a department of appropriate status and character for John Prescott who
was Deputy Prime Minister and an important 'Old Labour' figurehead in the new
Government.
After the 2001 election Prescott retained his position as Deputy Prime Minister
but was shunted off somewhat ignominiously to the Cabinet Office which is mainly
concerned with progressing overall Government policy. Prescott was also given
responsibility for developing the regional devolution agenda in which he had a personal
interest. At the same time the Prime Minister responded to the crisis in agriculture and
the rural economy brought about by the outbreak of foot and mouth disease by creating
a new Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), combining the
former environment wing of DETR with the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food (Table 10.2). This transfer of environmental responsibilities meant that for a
second time (the first being during the 1970s) the amalgamation of transport with the
environment had proved short-lived. As with all such changes it is difficult for outsiders
to gauge what policy intent, if any, should be read into it. In this case it might simply
have been the consequence of a higher priority being attached to the creation of the new
'rural' ministry. Nonetheless it added to the concerns of environmental groups about the
importance that would be placed on environmental issues in the implementation of the
national road-building programme included in the Ten Year Plan.
For a brief period the restyled DTLR (Department of Transport, Local Government
and the Regions) headed by a new Secretary of State, Stephen Byers, retained all the
former department's functions in the fields of planning and transport. However the
political controversy surrounding his dealings with Railtrack in the aftermath of the
Hatfield crash (8.6) forced his resignation, whereupon DTLR was split into two. (The
joining of the planning and transport ministries had therefore lasted just five years.)
Alistair Darling, a former Chief Secretary at the Treasury, was given responsibility for
a separate Department for Transport (DfT) whilst the non-transport functions were
returned to John Prescott in a department titled Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
(ODPM).
Darling held the transport portfolio for four years - an unusually long time - until
a ministerial reshuffle in May 2006 replaced him and Prescott respectively with new
younger Cabinet members Douglas Alexander and Ruth Kelly, ODPM being then
renamed the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG). They
in turn were moved a year later as part of the 'handover' of the Premiership from