Bus Services

Lord Snape Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I express my gratitude to the noble Baroness for the opportunity to discuss bus services. The House does not debate bus services as often as it should—though those who have heard me over the past 12 years might think we do so far too often. As the noble Baroness indicated, we look forward to the forthcoming buses Bill in the new Session of Parliament. I am sure that the Minister, trusting that he is reappointed, looks forward—as I do—to many happy hours of discussion about the Bill and how best to improve bus services throughout the United Kingdom.

As I indicated, the humble bus does not attract the attention that it ought to but its importance to society is enormous. Buses are vital for the economy and for the environment, but most importantly for people. In the year to the end of last March, some 4.65 billion passenger journeys were taken by bus in England—far more than any other form of public transport. In many cases, buses provide the only way to get to work, shopping, healthcare facilities and so much more for an enormous section of the population. For buses to serve their passengers and future passengers, they must be reliable, affordable, accessible and environmentally friendly.

Time and again, bus passenger satisfaction surveys carried out by Transport Focus highlight that punctuality is the top priority for passengers. Delivering high-quality bus services with a friendly bus driver, that go where passengers want to go at times when people want to travel, at a fair price and in an environmentally friendly vehicle is a shared responsibility. When operators work together with local authorities, real benefits for passengers are achieved. Partnership working has seen passenger numbers rise, complaints fall and has kept fares affordable in many parts of the country.

Here I must differ slightly from the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. She talked about the bus industry outside London and mentioned the word “crisis”. I hate to sound like Jim Callaghan—though he did not say it anyway—but, “Crisis? What crisis?”. The fact is that, again going back to the recent Transport Focus surveys, overall bus passenger satisfaction rates of over 90% are not bad. They do not indicate an industry in crisis. Bus operators must be doing something right if their passengers give them an average overall satisfaction rate as high as that.

The bus services Bill has been mentioned, which we expect to come before us some time in the next parliamentary Session. This will, I understand, give local authorities powers to franchise local bus services. I have never made any secret of the fact that I am not a great supporter of franchised bus services. I served on a passenger transport authority in the north-west in the 1970s, I was for a decade a transport spokesman in the other place and I was a bus company chairman in both the public and private sectors for some five years, so I hope I have some experience in these matters.

I draw the attention of the noble Baroness and the Minister to the situation in the West Midlands, where I spent most of the last four decades. The fact is that partnership there has come on enormously and bus passengers in the West Midlands have benefited enormously from the partnerships that have taken place over the years.

It has not been easy. When I first became chairman of Travel West Midlands in the mid-1990s, it was very difficult to get the passenger transport authority to sit round the table and discuss working together in the future. Wicked capitalists were always viewed as being against this sort of co-operation. However, there was, and is, an undercurrent of feeling in parts of local government—again, across party lines—that the last 30 years never happened and that the planning and franchising of bus services should be undertaken in the town hall rather than through bus scheduling generally. The West Midlands Bus Alliance has recently been formed. A press release from Centro, the passenger transport authority, now the delivery arm of the West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority, states:

“Bus operators across the West Midlands have signed up to a groundbreaking initiative delivering millions of pounds of investment to the region’s network. The Bus Alliance is the first of its kind in the country and will see £150 million invested by operators and partners between now and 2021. The investment in bus fleets by operators will enable them to meet rigorous new standards on key issues such as vehicle emission levels, branding, maximum fares and frequency”.

I repeat: that is the way forward. I hope I can press the Minister to draw the attention of local authorities in other parts of the country to what has been done, and is being done, in the West Midlands in providing a comprehensive bus service with agreement on all sides rather than with the compulsion which certainly some members of my own party feel is necessary, and which the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, indicated she felt would be necessary for the future.

If the Government and the Treasury provided billions of pounds to repeat the London experience throughout the country, obviously many of my fears would be allayed. However, I do not think that any of us—regardless of party or of where we stand on the bus issue—imagine that the Treasury would be as generous in some of the places named by the noble Baroness and in some conurbations up and down the country as it has been in London.

Let us look at the progress that has been made in the bus industry over the past few years. Today’s vehicles are unrecognisable from those which carried passengers on our streets as little as 15 years ago, with many operators countrywide offering free wi-fi, USB charging points, bus stop announcements and more comfortable seating as standard. Around 95% of the British bus fleet is now either fully accessible or low-floor. The industry is continuing to innovate, invest and deliver for passengers a truly viable alternative to the private car. Let us not forget that the main competitor to the bus industry is not another form of public transport; it is the private car. Unless we can make bus journeys as attractive, quick and prompt as those undertaken by private car, we will not persuade people—I emphasise “persuade”—to leave their cars at home and travel by bus.

Low-carbon buses are becoming increasingly common, not just in London with more than 1,500 hybrids, but throughout the United Kingdom. Innovative technology is playing its part. In Bristol, for example, there are “virtual electric” hybrids capable of sustained zero-emissions operation, and more than 100 biofuel buses will come into service in the coming years which will be carbon-neutral and powered by human waste. Neither political nor nationalistic considerations countrywide will affect the source of fuel as far as those vehicles are concerned. So there is genuine hope and genuine progress in the industry. I hope that when the buses Bill comes before your Lordships it will enhance, increase and improve that progress.

I congratulate the noble Baroness on initiating this important debate. The bus really is the glue that holds together all the other elements which make up a successful and sustainable community. The importance of local bus services cannot be overstated. Despite the uncertainty which operators are feeling because of the impending legislation, I hope the Government will ensure that whatever measures they bring forward in the bus services Bill will enable the commercial market to continue to thrive and innovate for the benefit of the travelling public. It is them and their future that we ought to be concerned about.

I repeat that I wish the Minister well in the new Session of Parliament; if he is still sitting on the Front Bench then I expect him to bring forward—I have said that twice. I hasten to add that I have no inside information about the Minister’s future. I should say that, if he is still on that Bench in the new Session, I expect that, when he brings forward the buses Bill, he and I, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, perhaps, and other noble Lords on both sides of the Chamber, will spend many happy hours together discussing this. I hope that the conclusions we come to will benefit bus passengers—it is their future, I repeat again, about which we are concerned and it is their future that the buses Bill should concentrate on.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport and Home Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and congratulate her on securing this debate, as have other noble Lords, and thank all noble Lords for their contribution on this important mode of transport. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Snape, for outlining the experience of West Midlands in particular. It would be fair to say that I am very keen, as is the Secretary of State and the department, to see innovative ways in which schemes work, not just in London but beyond. If the noble Lord were to accompany me, I should be delighted, but I look forward to visiting that route and not just hearing about it but experiencing how things are working in the West Midlands.

If I may digress for a moment, I was somewhat perturbed by not just one but two mentions of a possible reshuffle. The noble Lord clearly has his ear closer to the ground than I have; perhaps we should talk outside the Chamber.

[Lord Snape]

In view of the Minister’s invitation for me to accompany him, I assure him that I will put a good word in with the Prime Minister for him.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I thank the noble Lord for his support; I serve, of course, at the Prime Minister’s pleasure.

Returning to the important issue before us, I assure all noble Lords that the Government recognise the importance of buses and the role of public transport more generally for both the sustainability and the independence of communities. Let me say from the outset that we understand the importance of affordable, accessible transport for constituents across England and beyond in Wales and Scotland, through devolved Administrations. We recognise the extra pressures placed on local authorities throughout the country to provide services—particularly, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, in more isolated, rural and remote areas.

Transport is not just about levels of public funding, it is about how and where that funding is used. The Government believe that local authorities are best placed to decide what support to provide in response to the needs of their local communities. For example, where commercial operations are not feasible, local authorities have a vital role in supporting bus services. Indeed, around one-fifth of bus mileage in predominately rural authorities is operated under contract to them. That is why the Government devolved £40 million of the £250 million paid in the BSOG bus subsidy to councils outside London last year to support bus services in England, so they can decide for themselves how it is spent. But it is vital that those authorities maximise the return on every penny of the funding they provide. While there is a lot of innovation and hard work done by councils across the country, there is scope to look into more innovative ways.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on his re-election and his journey for all of us to the hill town of Colne. The route 95 is now very much part of the Hansard record. He also highlighted the importance of using other available sources of funding, such as Section 106 money to ensure that important routes are retained.

On the issue of public funding more generally, at present £2 billion per annum of public funding for transport services is provided by a number of agencies. For example, there is the bus service operators grant, or BSOG, of £250 million currently, paid by the DfT to bus operators, local authorities and community transport organisations on the basis of fuel burnt. Then there is the local bus services support of £317 million per annum, provided by the DCLG for local authority support of socially necessary bus services. There is home-to-school transport of £1 billion per annum, also provided to local authorities by the DCLG, and the non-emergency patient transport of £150 million per annum, provided by the NHS to individual local clinical commissioning groups.