Bus Funding

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for his question. The question of cross-border bus services is not altered, at least by this settlement, compared with previous settlements. But it is a question that the Government intend to address through the wider buses Bill, which will come before this House shortly. To some extent, you rely on local transport authorities to collaborate with each other, because the movement of passengers is quite often across local authority boundaries. We will have something more to say about that in due course.

The congestion caused by children travelling to school is a very common phenomenon in towns and cities throughout Great Britain. It is open to local transport authorities with the revenue element of this funding to devise schemes for cheaper bus fares for children and the Government will, of course, encourage them to do so, providing it is the right thing for their local area.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, on this side of the House I am sure there is a very warm welcome for these proposals. Under the previous Government, when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, a White Paper was produced which, if I remember correctly, was called Bus Back Better. At the time, I was a Cumbria county councillor and we had to put forward plans to see whether the Department for Transport would give us the money. We did not get any money, despite the problems of rural bus services in such a widespread geographical area as Cumbria. Frankly, the reason we did not get any money was that Cumbria was run by a Labour and Liberal Democrat joint administration. It was politics that decided it, not any attempt at objectivity. Does the Minister agree that a far better system is one where there is some rough and ready objectivity for some years ahead, which gives transport authorities an opportunity to plan?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I very much agree with my noble friend that a serviceable formula for the allocation of this money is a better thing to do, and to allocate some money to every local transport authority in England. The most damaging feature of all to bus services—which is a feature of the previous methodology of funding—is to have some money one year and no money the next. What happens in those circumstances is that supported services are withdrawn, the passengers disappear—either they cannot travel or they find some other method of travel—and it becomes much harder to re-establish those services. I will not bore the House with details, but I can find many examples across England of perfectly good services forced to be withdrawn because of the inadequate distribution of the previous funding. They are far more difficult to re-establish when funding turns up. The best thing you can have with a bus service is certainty of service over a long time.