Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Bradshaw

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 12th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

Like the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, I live in a rural area. I travel on the bus every day and I have noticed that, for the bus services in the county of Oxfordshire that have been cut and which the county council has decided in future not to subsidise, the people who were using the bus services concerned were mostly concessionary fare holders. I could get on a bus with 16 or 17 people yet nobody was paying a fare. But those 16 or 17 people valued that bus as a contact with civilisation. I am quite clear that these are not people who have a car; many do not have access to a car, but they formed the staple part of the bus route. The bus operator was able to extend the day somewhat in the knowledge that he would receive a subsidy and a reasonable concessionary fare for carrying the people using the bus.

I know that the Government are not likely today to spray money at the problem, but I ask them—and I have put this in Amendment 114, which we are not discussing today, because it seems to me that there is a case—to make concessionary fares weighted in favour of deep rural areas. The gearing is such that a fraction of a penny on major bus services, if targeted at deep rural services, would solve the problem without the Government having to spend any more money. There are problems, but I do not believe that they are insuperable. I know that operators have to be no better off and no worse off. That is very difficult to tell, but we can assume that if an operator has the subsidy withdrawn and its concessionary fare level is kept low, the natural result will be that it is worse off.

There will also no doubt be some obstruction from those operating bus services in urban areas, but I am talking about taking a very thin top-slice off the concessionary fares that are used in urban areas and devoting those to deep rural buses, where subsidy has been withdrawn and where this appears to be the only way of maintaining a decent bus service. Otherwise, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has said. I too have some doubts about whether the beleaguered local authorities will have the resources to undertake the survey, but it should be among their duties to look after not just the core of their county but the peripheries as well.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who I thought made an excellent case for Amendments 1 and 113 in his name and, in so doing, I should say that I am the vice-president of the Local Government Association. I simply add a little for the Minster to take away, because the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, talked a great deal about the importance of bus services for employment opportunities and for training purposes.

In the consultation that is talked about—a huge amount of consultation will take place on this Bill, not just in terms of this amendment—one type of organisation that should be automatically consulted is employers’ organisations. There can be huge problems for people who often are on a low income, live in remote places and have no access to a car and who, therefore, need to be able to get to employment and training opportunities, often at unsocial hours, by public transport. Therefore, it is important to consult those people. Proposed new subsection (4)(d)(iv) in Amendment 1 refers to,

“organisations, or types of organisation, specified by the Secretary of State in regulations made by statutory instrument”.

I hope very much that employers’ organisations and jobcentres will be included in that list.