Buses

Debate between Lord Bradshaw and Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

Thursday 8th March 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

My Lords, I think this is the third debate in Grand Committee about bus services. One was tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and one by my noble friend Lady Randerson. Having read the debates, I thought that the conclusions really meant almost nothing at all; the words went into the air but the actions did not follow.

Much time is spent by politicians discussing the bus industry. Unfortunately, most of them talk about ownership. This has little to do with the major issue that confronts the bus operators: congestion. The use of buses in England outside London has been on a downward trend for about nine or 10 years. Congestion affects private and public sector operators regardless of ownership. I often travel on buses in Reading, which are run by a municipal company, and in Oxford, where the companies are privately owned. In both cities there are fairly effective partnership arrangements, modern vehicles and enterprising ticketing systems, which are improving. Nevertheless, they are suffering declining levels of patronage caused by congestion, which is felt throughout Great Britain. This subject will form the core of my remarks. I hope that the Minister, in her reply, can give some positive answers.

First, I draw attention to the fact that the bus industry has suffered a significant decline in financial support relative to the car. Fuel duty for road transport has been frozen since 2011. The bus service operator’s grant, which the bus industry has traditionally enjoyed, has been reduced by about 20%; that means that, relative to the car, its costs associated with fuel have increased. Wages in the bus industry have to be competitive to attract and keep drivers, because bus driving is not a very nice job, and have risen well in advance of general wage levels, particularly in the cities.

Another fiscal measure that needs close examining is the availability of concessionary travel to young people. These people have a high propensity to travel and will make more and more journeys if they can afford it. Making young persons’ railcards available on trams and buses—as well as trains—would stimulate travel, and serious consideration should be given to this measure. It might not be very expensive because of the high propensity to travel. It would also be a disincentive to car ownership. It really is time we stopped talking about this and moved on to some action.

However, bus operators must shoulder high fixed costs. They have to provide vehicles of higher and higher standards because the engines’ emissions have to keep improving; they pay wages that rise faster than average; and they must operate to high standards of reliability and punctuality to retain or increase market share—and indeed to continue to enjoy the privilege of a licence to operate.

The efforts of operators to maintain standards of punctuality are frustrated by increasing traffic congestion. It has been shown that efforts by the bus industry to maintain punctuality by increasing the number of buses operating on a route increases operators’ costs by an average of some 8%. However, it provides no additional revenue, and if costs are passed on through higher fares, passenger numbers decline further and we are in a vicious circle. One is forced into a situation where government, either nationally or locally, must take action if effective remedies are to be found for the problems of bus punctuality. Almost any initiative the companies can make without tackling the problems associated with congestion is likely to fail.

That brings us to the fundamental question of why so much is done in cities to encourage car use and so little to facilitate bus operation. Is it because of the intense pressure from the motoring lobby or the cowardice of politicians nationally or locally—local authorities vie with each another to attract cars to their shops with offers of highly subsidised parking, often ignoring the land values attaching to city-centre car parks—or is it because of an unwillingness to get tough with obstructive parking? When all these advantages are weighed in any objective assessment, what advantage does the bus have and who speaks for the bus user? In this situation, should not government, local or national, try to redress the balance effectively?

What ambitions are available apart from effective road markings and effective enforcement? Obviously, the simplest is the introduction of road user pricing. This can be made fiscally neutral by adjustments to vehicle excise duty but it would mean that those who chose to drive on the busiest roads at the busiest times would pay more and those in the country would pay less or, more likely, nothing at all. This use of the pricing mechanism is the way that markets work in almost every other field, and I believe it is the policy of the Government. Pricing would be time-related so that small charges would be made between the peaks and none at all at night. The whole process could be conducted automatically, so there would be no need for vehicles to stop. The technology is essentially the same for policing low-emission areas and can be expected to operate reliably.

The Traffic Management Act 2004, brought into force by the then Labour Government, provided for some measures to deal with congestion, including decriminalisation of certain offences such as abuse of parking regulations. These may be enforced by local authorities, which are enabled to retain the proceeds from penalty notices to defray the costs of enforcement. Most local authorities elected to apply to take up these powers, although some still have not. In fact, the area in which I live in South Oxfordshire has not done so and has tried to rely on police enforcement, which does not exist. The police have far greater priorities—we have only to look at what has gone on in Salisbury.

The result is that dangerous and illegal parking is rife in the area, which has undesirable consequences in terms of congestion. It also brings the law into disrepute. Because people see offences routinely not being prosecuted, they push further and further and ignore other regulations. However, local authorities which have adopted these decriminalised powers wish to go further to eliminate some other offences which aggravate congestion, such as illegal right turns and the abuse of yellow box junctions. Powers for Her Majesty’s Government exist within Schedule 6 to the Act but have not been brought into effect outside London, despite huge pressure from the Local Government Association. I urge the Minister to agree to do this right away and to impress on those local authorities that have not adopted the decriminalised powers to do so quickly.

Access to the highway for roadworks, mostly by the utilities, causes delay. Under the same Act, we were supposed to see “highway management”, which would see some control exercised over the utilities by the introduction of things such as lane rental. What has become of this, and why does the Minister think that the co-ordination of roadworks, which was promised at the time, does not work? Highway maintenance causes delays for which the supposed remedy of lane rental has not been an effective response, while the unresolved problem of potholes goes from bad to worse. It is no good berating the bus companies about punctuality, as Transport Focus does, unless the root causes are tackled by the Government. Buses, unlike the railways, have no control over the highways on which they operate. That control belongs to government, both local and national, as does the enforcement of their operation.

Partnerships work well in some areas such as Brighton, but even there some 13 buses have been added since 2012 to the fleet of 200—

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

I am sorry, but the noble Lord’s time to speak is up.

[Lord Bradshaw]

I am sorry, but I have almost finished. Those buses have been added because of the effects of congestion. In Oxford, in 1996 the journey from Abingdon to the city centre took 70 minutes but now takes 96. Within the city, a trip to Kidlington which in 1986 took 60 minutes now takes 80. I have many other examples from elsewhere around the country. The single issue I want to hear more about from the Minister is what the Government propose to do about congestion.