Bus Franchising

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for his comments. I particularly note his support for the effects of the initial tranches of franchising in Manchester, which have indeed increased service and produced better reliability. He refers to the very old organisation of public transport in Manchester. Many of those magnificent vehicles are in the Manchester transport museum at Queens Road.

These days, the increasing number of combined authorities are of a good size to take advantage of this Government’s franchising proposition. It is, in effect, bringing together local authorities of sufficient size to be able to take advantage of the benefits of a network. I do not have an answer to whether this will allow individual local authorities to join together, but I am happy to write to the right reverend Prelate about that.

The right reverent Prelate raised the subject of the integration of rail services. We have already made a lot of progress with the Mayor of Greater Manchester, and with the Mayor of the West Midlands, in integrating rail services into the local transport network in information and in ticketing. Although this is not the subject of today’s discussion, I have no doubt that there will be some announcements on that. He is right to aspire to an integrated local network that is modally agnostic and includes rail and, in Manchester’s case, metro and buses.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, if we are going to use TfL and the London bus network as the example for going around the country, the dread problem of safety goes around again. Carrying on from the question I asked the Minister earlier this week, it often seems that in London—where, from memory, someone is killed by a bus every six weeks—the bus companies investigate their own incidents, with the DVSA checking for legalities. Who will be responsibility for safety in these franchises, and will they have teeth?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

One of the benefits of London’s large system of bus franchising is the work that Transport for London has done on the design and safety of bus travel. The noble Lord has to remember that those vehicles are on the road for 18, 20 or 24 hours a day, and they form a major part of the mileage of vehicles in London, even though their numbers are fairly small.

A significant amount of work has been done on the safety of driving and drivers, and on the design of vehicles. I know that has been shared with manufacturers and bus operators across the country, and with organisations such as Transport for Greater Manchester and the Urban Transport Group. I would expect more of that to happen.

The safety of buses is considered by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Authority, which is an executive arm of the Department for Transport and has the power to investigate serious bus accidents, which it does. It has the power to prosecute the drivers and operators of those vehicles. None of these proposals would alter its powers to continue to do so.