Rural Bus Services

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans on securing this very timely debate. It is a privilege to sit with him on the Rural Affairs Group of the General Synod under the excellent chairmanship of Bishop James Bell. It is just a point of regret to note that in the new year he will be retiring from that position. It was also an honour to chair the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee in the other place for five years.

It gives me particular pleasure to congratulate and welcome my noble friend Lord Kirkhope to his place today. We very much look forward to hearing his maiden speech. I am sure that will be the first of many occasions on which we hear him contribute. We have both come a long way since we drove tanks with the British Army on the Rhine all those years ago, and I take this opportunity to wish him a very happy, fruitful and successful time in this House.

This debate on the sustainability of rural communities goes to the heart of the challenges that are faced by living in parts of rural North Yorkshire. It goes wider than transport alone; to have a sustainable rural economy and to enjoy living well in rural communities we must have access to fast, reliable broadband and mobile phone and internet networks. We must have a supply of affordable homes, good rural schools, regular and reliable bus services and a vibrant rural economy, which means access to banks and financial support for rural businesses through loans and grants. Certainly, banks are coming under increased pressure and in many cases have seen reduced opening hours in recent years.

I recognise that the cost of providing services in rural communities is higher than in urban areas. The costs of transporting children to schools and patients to hospitals, running police vehicles and other such things are much greater than in urban areas. I make a plea to my noble friend the Minister—whom I welcome to his place today—that we should recognise these additional costs and include a rurality and sparsity factor, as we have done increasingly in education funding.

I also make a special plea for rural bus services and concessionary fares. They play a big part in helping to combat isolation and loneliness among elderly people and indeed among young mums with children. They go to the heart of quality of life, which can be enhanced by subsidised bus services. The key to sustainable transport in rural areas is access to regular, reliable bus services for the very old, the very young and the most vulnerable. There is often no alternative—people may have no car or be too frail to drive. Bus services can enable these very vulnerable people to access vital services, such as schools, hospitals, doctors’ surgeries and dentists, and can ease the feelings of loneliness and isolation. For me, the game-changer would be one simple thing: to keep concessionary fares on rural bus services but allow those eligible to pay a contribution. Older people in North Yorkshire would willingly do so—in fact, they would be willing to pay up to half the cost of the fare. What would be the point of offering concessionary fares with no services to provide them?