Queen’s Speech

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to welcome most of the Bus Services Bill. Buses are vital for the economy, the environment and, most importantly, for people. In the year to the end of March last year, some 4.65 billion passenger journeys were taken by bus in England—that is far more than any other form of public transport. In many cases, they provide the only way to get to work, shops, healthcare facilities and so much more. For buses to serve their passengers, prospective passengers and passengers in the future, they must be reliable, affordable, accessible and environmentally friendly.

Time and again, the annual bus passenger survey carried out by Transport Focus highlights that punctuality is the top priority for passengers. Delivering high-quality bus services with a friendly and fully motivated bus driver, that go where passengers want to go, at times when people want to travel and at a fair price is a shared responsibility. When operators work together with local authorities, real benefits for the passenger are achieved. The most recent Transport Focus surveys have put overall bus passenger satisfaction rates at around 90%. Bus operators must be doing something right. I can think of many sectors that would love to have such a high rating from their customers.

So why is the Bus Services Bill necessary? Partnership working between bus operators and local authorities appears to work pretty well and passengers are happy. The seeds of the Bus Services Bill were sown some 18 months ago when the Chancellor announced a devolution deal for Greater Manchester which would give the combined authority, under the leadership of an elected mayor, powers to take control of its bus services and run them under a franchise arrangement. Can the Minister confirm that his right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport was closely involved in the negotiations in the run-up to the announcement? I suspect that the Minister would prefer to write to me on that point.

Bus services are local services, delivered locally to meet the needs of local people by a bus operator with local knowledge. In many cases, these local bus operators have many years of experience—often a life’s work—in doing just that: meeting the needs of their passengers. If a local authority chooses to use the franchising powers afforded to it under the Bus Services Bill, bus operators could find themselves out of business. Your Lordships should be aware that there is nothing in the Bill to suggest that these operators would be compensated. I have some worries about this and the commercial value of data relating to route activity, and I cannot help but worry about the effect on investment.

As I have said, partnership working has served the passenger very well over the years. Where passengers stand to get an even better deal under the new partnership arrangements set out in the Bill, that will be great. However, it will be important that these arrangements allow operators to grow patronage and retain their commercial freedom.

The Bill is very much an enabling Bill; there is no compulsion on local authorities to franchise their bus services. If the existing working arrangements between operators and local authorities are achieving results for all concerned, again, there is no need for any change, so far as I can see.

The measures in the Bill about ensuring that passengers have access to information on routes, timetables and fares are welcome. Making available real-time data on bus arrival time is extremely important and will facilitate exciting new IT capabilities. I look forward to hearing more about that when we get to Second Reading and Committee on the Bill.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, in his interesting speech, talked about what we need to do to improve the manufacturing sector in the UK. I would like to add something: we do not hold our engineers, both at professional and technician level, in high regard socially. In fact, I think we are a bit snobbish about this at all levels. It is vital that we improve the social standing of our professional engineers, much in the way that it is in Germany, where it is Herr Doktor Engineer—do not try to talk to a German engineer about problems with your washing machine because you will get short shrift. We must improve the social standing of our engineers if we want to be in a similar position to Germany.