Obituary: John Prescott (1938-2024)

LTT reflects on the influence on transport of former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott

Former deputy prime minister and transport minister John Prescott has died aged 86. The Labour politician was Deputy Prime Minister from 1997-2007, and Environment, Transport and the Regions Secretary from 1997-2001 in Tony Blair’s first Labour administration. He was made a member of the House of Lords in 2010.

Prescott brought out a White Paper entitled ‘A New Deal for Transport’, which became the Transport Act, receiving Royal Assent in December 2000. The Act included plans for 25 new ‘rapid transit’ light rail routes, and a 50% growth in rail passengers by 2020, and also led to the creation of the Strategic Rail Authority.

During his time in charge of transport, Prescott oversaw improvements to railway safety in the wake of the Ladbroke Grove train crash. 

He introduced the Train Protection & Warning System (TPWS) and the Confidential Incident Reporting & Analysis System (CIRAS). 

He also signed off on the Transport and Works Order in 1999 for the reconstruction of the Welsh Highland Railway from Caernarfon to Porthmadog.

At the Kyoto climate conference in December 1997 Prescott was among the key leaders of the EU delegation, with negotiations culminating in 150 countries agreeing to binding reductions on carbon emissions.

Phil Goodwin, emeritus professor of transport policy at the Centre for Transport and Society, University of the West of England, Bristol, and University College London, said: “I had the pleasure of working with John Prescott at the beginning of the high point in his political career, as Secretary for State for the massive Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. Not yet confident of his civil servants, he set up an external advisory committee to help write his White Paper, which I chaired. (Working productively with those same civil servants).” 

'A New Deal for Transport', and the subsequent legislation, “were a historically important turning point”, Goodwin told LTT. “Prescott was a very good Secretary of State, and much more intelligent than was always revealed in his speeches, which slower commentators thought were confused. 

“But he decided that his most important contribution was not in transport, but in trying to the relationship between old and new Labour. 

“A less remembered initiative was his creation of the impressive Commission for Integrated Transport, which produced many creative reports until it was gleefully abolished by David Cameron. The current Government might usefully pay attention to its thoughtful approach. Lord Peter Hendy was its final Chair.”

Stephen Joseph, transport policy advisor and University of Hertfordshire's visiting professor on smart mobility, described Prescott as an “impressive politician who had a clear vision of what he wanted transport to do”. Joseph told LTT: “His integrated transport white paper was about integrating transport with other policy areas - notably planning and climate change - not just about buses linking with trains. 

“Sadly, some of his ideas – for example a national tax on all non-residential parking, and more public control over public transport – fell foul of No. 10 and those around it.  He was very idiosyncratic and had strong views about people, positive and negative, but he did get things done. He will be missed.”