Amid the crushing pressure of the cost of living crisis, most students are inclined to choose the cheapest route home, regardless of its toll on the climate. Even in a stable economic environment, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect the typical student to hunt for the lowest fare, despite potentially higher carbon emissions. With the cost of living crisis adding to the spectre of the ever-present climate emergency, it’s worth asking, are legislators in Holyrood and Westminster doing anything to offset both costs and carbon?
In Scotland, the answer is a resounding yes! Students in Scotland are in a strong position following the introduction of the Young Scot NEC scheme in January 2022. The availability of free inter-city buses for under-22s facilitated by the scheme allows Scottish students like Fraser Hyde to travel home to Glasgow frequently from Edinburgh without excessive travel costs. Students can largely thank the Scottish
Greens for their role in pioneering the NEC transport scheme, functioning as a cornerstone of their ongoing Holyrood power-sharing agreement with the SNP. Additionally, the Greens secured a £5B pledge towards the modernisation and de-carbonisation of a now-nationalised Scottish rail network, serving to both enhance the accessibility of cheap travel and reduce national carbon emissions. Scottish students returning home from Edinburgh are therefore put in a relatively manageable position.
Conversely, the state of affairs for English students in Edinburgh is much less impressive. At the time of writing, booking a one-way train one month in advance from Edinburgh to London Kings Cross would cost anywhere between £45.00- 70.00. Comparatively, flying from Edinburgh to London Stansted would cost £15.00- 34.00. Fares then rise substantially for English students located off of the East and
West coast ‘Main Lines’, with fares sometimes surpassing a three-digit sum for a one-way trip. Such high fares are made increasingly unattractive, with the added dimension of RMT rail strikes affecting the reliability of service, causing an increasing number of students to turn to budget airlines to return home.
Yet, students’ frustrations shouldn’t be directed at unions like the RMT. Instead, why not question the Transport Secretary, Mark Harper? Why was the cheapest travel option from Edinburgh to Leeds for student Faizaan Alam during an RMT strike in November flying from Edinburgh, to Turin, then to Manchester, and then taking a coach to Leeds? Can students really be held to account for even considering such journeys when the Conservatives fail to negotiate effectively with the RMT, and equally to provide reliable, cost-effective, green transport?
Further criticisms of Westminster can be raised with the mismanagement of the High-Speed 2 (HS2) project. For those unfamiliar, HS2 is a controversial ‘Green Infrastructure’ project that aimed to connect London, Birmingham, Crewe, Manchester, and Leeds by ultra-modern rail. While not commissioned initially by the Conservatives, HS2 has become a flagship project in Westminster’s push for Net Zero emissions by 2050, alongside the goal of ‘levelling up’ the Midlands and North. Disappointingly, this project has faced severe alterations and delays over a number of years, with the Department for Transport effectively cancelling the development of HS2’s Leeds branch in 2021. As recently as last week, further problems emerged, with Mark Harper announcing the delay of HS2’s only remaining phase in development, with Harper blaming “significant inflationary pressure and increased project costs” for pushing the opening of HS2 back a further two years to 2036.
These failures are accompanied by vocal opposition from conservation groups such as The Wildlife Trusts and the Woodland Trust, who dispute government claims that constructing HS2 infrastructure would have a minimal ecological impact. With HS2 drawing public disdain due to sluggish progress and constant alterations, students and the wider British public alike have every right to question the Conservatives’ record on green transport policy. Some would argue that Westminster should be given the benefit of the doubt – after all, other prominent high-speed rail investments such as the Japanese ‘Shinkansen’ Bullet Train were plagued by budgetary issues, yet delivered incredible economic benefits for the post-war Japanese economy. Regardless, even if HS2 has the potential to boost the British economy, the project’s mismanagement has further soured the Conservatives transport policy record.
The realities of travelling home for Scottish and English students have become increasingly divergent. Whilst Scottish students are entitled to the benefits of the Young Scot NEC program, English students at the University of Edinburgh have increasingly been pushed towards ecologically consequential air routes to return home. When comparable economies such as France have banned most short-haul internal flights and instead facilitated low-cost, high-speed rail links between cities, the shortcomings of Conservative policy on both sustainability and transport alike become increasingly apparent. If Westminster wishes to retain any sense of legitimacy on the issues of climate, transport policy, and ‘levelling up’, comprehensive reform is needed at a high speed.
Image: “Train Chartering – Locomotive (Class 50) of a train for BBC filming at London’s Paddington Station (UK)” by Luxury Train Club is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.