West Midlands: Transport

Debate between Preet Kaur Gill and Tahir Ali

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Henderson, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), or Redditch and the villages, on securing this debate on transport in the west midlands.

I will speak today about buses. In the past year, trains have undoubtedly dominated headlines in my region after the bungled scrapping of HS2. Buses might not be as glamorous as trains and might not justify expensive taxpayer-funded trips to Japan for the Transport Secretary, but for many of my constituents buses are the lifeblood of the community. They are indispensable for connecting people to jobs, opportunities, education, public services, and friends and family. They also disproportionately serve the more deprived in our society; half of the poorest fifth of families do not own a car.

As I have argued many times before, poor bus services are one of the key reasons why Birmingham underperforms in productivity when compared to similar-sized cities in Europe. I have received complaints about buses from many of my constituents; whether they are looking for work, meeting with family, or simply want a day or night out in the city, the public transport is not there to connect them.

In my time as the MP for Birmingham, Edgbaston, I have lost count of the times that routes on which my constituents rely have been reduced or axed altogether. I also use buses to get around, so I have first-hand experience of that. The directors of National Express West Midlands and Diamond Bus are probably fed up with my letters, but as we are hearing, it is not just us in Birmingham, Edgbaston. Across the country, thousands of services have been axed since 2010. In the west midlands region, the total length of our bus routes has dropped by over 30% since 2010. Since 2021 alone, when the Government announced their bus revolution, over 2,000 routes have disappeared across England.

I want to wish the outgoing Mayor of the west midlands well in whatever he does next, and I thank him for his support and for working with me. However, I must say that I have been underwhelmed by his record on transport; I am thinking not only of his public spat with the Prime Minister on HS2. While our economy is 24/7, our public transport system in the west midlands simply is not. The people of the west midlands voted for change this week, and with Richard Parker I am confident that they will get it. Everyone should have access to a bus route that takes them where they want to go, and they should not have to limit their life choices based on where they live.

[Tahir Ali]

For the record, West Midlands Combined Authority’s medium-term finances represent a significant challenge to the authority, as a deficit of £29 million is forecast for this year, rising to £50 million for the year 2027-28. That will not be the responsibility of the incoming Mayor; that clearly sits with the outgoing Mayor and this Government. For the record, does my hon. Friend agree that the deficit proposed for this year, and up to 2027-28, will have nothing to do with the incoming Mayor?

[Preet Kaur Gill]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Clearly, that is something I have expressed already in working with Andy Street when it came to the cuts to a viability assessment taking place in my constituency, which would have a Sprint network, for example. A lot of the finances from central Government and the delays directly impacted what he could deliver in the region and clearly what the next Mayor will be able to.

Richard Parker’s plans are to bring the bus network into public control, allowing us to design routes that people need and making buses more affordable, more reliant, more frequent, greener and better connected. Crucially, he has pledged to work with communities to help design a bus network that works for them. Will the Minister join me in congratulating Richard Parker on his victory last week, and can he say whether he will support him in his plans to take buses back into public control? Can the Minister promise that he will not face the same six-year slog that Andy Burnham had to put up with in Greater Manchester due to the unnecessary barriers imposed by central Government?

Voters have seen what they get under a Conservative-run Government: paying more while getting less—whether that is 14 years and £16 billion wasted on HS2 before scrapping it anyway, or whether it is Avanti West Coast’s executives bragging about free money from the Government while cutting routes and running the worst-performing rail line in the country. Labour’s plan to bring buses back into public control could create and save up to 1,300 vital bus routes and allow 250 million more passenger journeys per year. In the west midlands region, that would amount to nearly 160 bus routes created or saved, and 40 million more passenger journeys. I am delighted that we have a west midlands Mayor who wants to match my constituents’ ambition. I hope that soon enough we will have the opportunity to vote for a Government who back him to do that, too.