Covid-19: Transport Industry

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am aware of the very difficult situation that the coach industry finds itself in. It is a very diverse sector with, as the noble Lord points out, a large number of family-run businesses. About 80% of revenue in the coach sector comes from tourism, and we are working very hard with DCMS to ensure that where tourism—particularly domestic tourism—can take place, it does. Much of the remaining 20% is home-to-school transport, and the Government have made available £40 million for the first half of this current term, for local authorities to procure extra vehicles.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, further to the Question of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, in 10 days’ time, the emergency funding that the Government agreed with Transport for London to keep the buses and Tubes running runs out. Can the Minister reassure the House that there will be some agreement thereafter? If the Mayor of London has asked for £5 billion, how will any future burden be shared between the national taxpayer, travellers and London’s council tax payers?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend mentions the figure of £5 billion: well, the Mayor of London would say that, wouldn’t he? As part of the first bailout, the Government commissioned a government-led review of TfL’s finances and I am afraid that it did not make happy reading, even prior to the pandemic. Multi-year fare freezes are indeed a great vote winner, but eventually one has to make very difficult choices, so the Government will be ensuring that the Mayor of London makes those choices in order to get TfL back on to a financially sustainable footing so that we can protect the interests of the UK taxpayer.