A LABOUR government will “drive a green industrial revolution,” including a possible rise on fuel and flight taxes, shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald said today.

Mr McDonald called for a fairer transport policy, suggesting that it was “not a sensible approach” to have increased fares for bus and rail passengers while freezing duties on flights and fuel, in a speech to the Institute for Government in central London.

He has commissioned Phil Goodwin, emeritus professor at University College London and the University of the West of England, to consider what a “social contract for transport” between the government and the public should contain.

Mr McDonald said that fuel duty has been frozen since 2010 at a cost of £50 billion, and air passenger duty has been “broadly frozen over a similar period, while rail and bus fares were up by more than a third.

He accused the Department for Transport of paying “lip service to climate change” and pledged that Labour would impose carbon reduction targets on the transport sector.

He added: “Labour want to see the department set a carbon budget consistent with the aspirations of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

“The next Labour government intends to drive a green industrial revolution.”