Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Alex Mayer Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 24th June 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Joe Robertson]

All the comments I was going to make have already been made by the shadow Minister. He was so complete and comprehensive that he leaves no space for any additional comment. However, I will briefly give my slant on some of the points. When I rose at the beginning of this sitting, it was to talk about the costs that would be put on to local authorities by the general duties in new clause 22. That has been dealt with. This clause will put much more significant costs on to local authorities that choose to go down the franchising route—after all, franchising is a choice available to a transport authority. Those are costs incurred by transferring a risk from commercial operators to local authorities and the taxpayer if the business does not go in the way of the business plan.

The shadow Minister has already spoken about the huge cost subsidy, effectively, to the services operated in London and Manchester, where there are huge economy of scale advantages. My view is that the franchising model, if it works at all, works for high population densities—cities, large local authorities and those that can swallow bad years—and offers nothing at all for smaller authorities other than the option to take a step into the unknown for no obvious benefit. I think of my local authority on the Isle of Wight—it is fanciful to think that that unitary authority could in any way take a step towards franchising. Even if we end up with a combined mayoral authority with Hampshire county council, which has a big budget deficit, it seems highly unattractive to Hampshire, Portsmouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight to go down the franchising route and take on all those risks.

I have no direct experience of the Manchester model, but if Manchester really is the shining beacon, it is one that has cost a huge amount of money. However, that is a huge amount of money that the taxpayer in Manchester may be able to swallow. For a transport authority with a significant chunk of rurality—Hampshire and the Isle of Wight is an exception only in that it has an island attached to it, not in terms of how rural it is—I cannot see the figures adding up because no money goes with franchising.

The Government may talk about money being available for bus services and the £3 fare cap. Those are welcome things, but they are not sums of money that naturally flow with an option to go down the franchising route. Although that does not go against having franchising as an option, I feel that it is going to be attractive only to a fairly small proportion of England—areas with high-density populations and those with metropolitan authorities. In this country, franchising is for the few; it is not a mass model that all local authorities will find attractive. It could lead to a more uneven quality of bus services across the country, and to a two-tier system.

[Alex Mayer (Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I want to challenge the suggestion that franchising is an obligation. It is not; it is a power that is given to authorities to use if they wish. However, in those communities that were so poorly served for the past 14 years under the previous Government, should we not inspire an ambition for better bus services?

[Joe Robertson]

I was not suggesting that it is an obligation. Plainly, franchising is an option. My point is that it is an option that is unattractive to smaller local authorities, which cannot benefit from the economies of scale of franchising bus services. It is much more attractive for city areas. Of course I want rural bus services to be improved; my constituency is a rural area and we want better bus services. I see absolutely nothing in the franchising option that will deliver that, because I cannot see a local authority—in my own or other rural areas—looking at it and thinking, “This is helpful.” That is because it does not, as a right, bring money with it.