Bus Routes: Local Consultation

Debate between Andy Carter and Dean Russell

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dean Russell]

I thank the hon. Member for his comments. To be fair, he did not need to text me. I was hoping he would join the Adjournment debate—it would be very odd if he did not. I appreciate his comments and agree wholeheartedly. Surely the point of a timetable is to ensure that people know what time buses are coming. If that timetable changes, the people who use the bus should be consulted and asked about how it will impact them, not just seen as numbers on a spreadsheet. Having spoken to local residents, I was surprised to learn that there is not a Government or local government edict that bus users must be consulted before a change to the timetable, which would seem an obvious thing to do, so I wholeheartedly agree with his comments.

I have been actively engaging, talking and corresponding with organisations, whether Arriva or local government, so none of them will be surprised about the concerns I raise today in the Chamber. This is a constructive opportunity to say that I will not give up on raising these issues, but will work with them to ensure they are resolved in the best way possible for my constituents.

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has secured this debate today. Warrington has recently seen about £42 million investment in its bus services. When I post on social media and talk about these issues, the overwhelming response is that it is all very well investing in the future, but if buses are cancelled and do not run that causes significant problems. Does he agree that there is a fundamental need to ensure local consultation is in place? People make decisions on where they buy their houses based on bus routes and timings for getting into work. If that all falls down, people’s lives are significantly impacted by decisions taken in a bus company office somewhere. Is consultation not fundamental when things change?

[Dean Russell]

I truly thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, because he allowed me to intervene in his debate about buses in Warrington. I recall, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you were in the Chair at the time and commented on the clear similarities between Warrington and Watford. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that timetables cannot just be looked at on a spreadsheet or on Google Maps, as they can have a detrimental impact on individuals. Bus routes can also have a really positive impact on opportunities to travel, whether for work or for leisure.

I want to raise three key points. First, there are the timetable challenges, which are the common thread throughout this debate. Secondly, there is poor service—a real challenge—with timetable problems and buses not turning up making things infinitely worse for local residents. Thirdly, there are poor communications.

It is worth noting that buses are used for twice as many journeys as trains, and stop at thousands of places across the country. Often, the transport debate is dominated by trains. My very first Prime Minister’s question after being elected was about the trains in Watford. Thankfully, those issues were resolved at the time but, unfortunately, the pandemic hit and the service changed again. The reality is that buses are used more. They have much more of an impact and are very important in rural and urban areas for what might be seen as shorter journeys but are harder when just walking, especially for those who might be infirm.

Low Traffic Neighbourhoods: Latchford

Debate between Andy Carter and Dean Russell

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

I am grateful to secure this debate to discuss the impact of low traffic neighbourhoods in Latchford. I will go on to talk about the practical and environmental impact of these initiatives, or rather the lack thereof, as I will explain in the case of Warrington South, I will focus on my constituents’ experiences of the Westy low traffic neighbourhood zone, which was imposed by Warrington Borough Council on people living and working in the Latchford area earlier this year.

Conservative councillors and I have been at odds with Labour over this issue for some time. I have had many meetings with local residents and business owners who have told me that they are angry and simply fed up with the low traffic zone that has been forced on them without proper consultation, and that the council has failed to listen to their concerns about the scheme.

To explain the background to what is happening in Latchford, I will take hon. Members back to 2019—pre-pandemic—when initial consultations took place on a low traffic neighbourhood. As part of the Central 6 Streets masterplan for Warrington, the borough council proposed to implement low traffic neighbourhood zones in Westy, an area of Latchford, and in Orford, which falls in the constituency of the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols).

After late 2019, nothing happened for almost three years. Then signs began to appear out of the blue. The trial for the low traffic neighbourhoods was due to begin on 20 June 2022 and to last for 18 months. Prior to the scheme’s implementation, I had already received many pieces of correspondence from constituents who were concerned about how the LTN would affect traffic routes and congestion, especially by diverting vehicles around two primary schools and through nearby streets.

When I looked closely at the Central 6 Streets masterplan, it was obvious why many constituents were concerned by the lack of communication from the council. Even the dedicated Facebook page had last been updated in 2019. Given that social media are critical for getting the message out to constituents in this day and age, that severe lack of information from the council is quite shocking.

Conservative councillors and I called for planned closures to be put on hold so that concerns about the LTN could be properly addressed before a trial run was enacted. The Conservative group on the council tabled a motion to call for operations to be halted in case the borough council refused to listen and decided to press ahead anyway. It was encouraging to see many local residents taking to the streets and making their voices heard in a well-attended protest outside the council offices when the vote was due to take place. Many people also got in contact with me and borough councillors to warn of the inevitable problems that the LTN scheme would cause, and to urge the council to rethink.

Sadly, it came as no surprise that Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors decided to press ahead with the Westy scheme, despite their decision to pause the equivalent scheme in Orford in Warrington North. In an open letter to Warrington residents, the council leader wrote:

“After carefully considering feedback we have received over the last couple of weeks, we have come to the conclusion that while we will proceed as planned with the Westy scheme, it is only right to pause our plans for Orford, to reflect on the feedback we have received.”

I do not know exactly why the council considered my constituents in Warrington South less deserving of proper consultation about policies affecting their daily lives than those in Warrington North, but there we have it: the council pressed ahead in Warrington South but paused in Warrington North.

The day before the Westy trial was due to begin, Conservative councillors again placed a motion before the full council to call for the LTN to be paused for further consultation with local residents, but again that was simply ignored. A few days after the LTN trial began, I met business owners at their request to hear their take on the road closures and how they were affecting their businesses. I must say that I have never been so depressed and seriously worried by the impact on businesses in an area as a result of changes made by a local council.

Some businesses had suffered a drop in trade so significant that they were already seriously considering closing down. Two businesses that I spoke to had seen takings drop by 40% on the previous week, and after five months, I am afraid that the situation is no better. Local business owners—the people who proudly stand as the backbone of our high streets—who rely on passing trade for much of their income are telling me that they now face closure and redundancies unless the problems with the LTNs are urgently addressed.

Over the summer, I sent out thousands of surveys—one to every household in Latchford East—to ask for feedback on the low traffic neighbourhood, so I could understand and get feedback on the general opinion once the scheme had been brought into effect. I am incredibly grateful that more than 900 households came back to me to share their thoughts, and the results speak for themselves. Since the implementation of the new road layout several months prior, 86% of respondents told me they wanted to return to the old layout, while 87% said they did not support the decision to close Grange Avenue to through traffic.

The most alarming result was that over 85% of respondents reported that their journey times had increased because they were sitting in traffic for longer as a result of a low traffic neighbourhood. As someone who has experienced travelling along Kingsway and Knutsford Road in peak times through Warrington South, I understand their frustration. Increased congestion clearly flies in the face of the council’s own environmental commitments, yet the reality is that an LTN scheme has simply made it worse.

What I really do think is a travesty for local democracy is that 85% of those constituents who fed back to me said that they were not consulted about the road closures prior to their being implemented. I am afraid that it is simply unacceptable to put in place a scheme that is going to cause so much change and disruption to people’s daily lives, and not have the courtesy to ask for their views on it beforehand.

After I shared these findings with the borough council and an evaluation of the feedback from its own interim survey had been carried out, I received an email from the council saying that it was going to make some changes to the Westy low traffic neighbourhood. I was hoping it would really take account of the points raised by local residents; sadly, it did not. It did not reverse any of the scheme, but simply moved a couple of planters. It means that constituents who have experienced a 10 minutes or sometimes 20 minutes longer journey to get from one end of a road to another are still facing those long delays. What local residents in Latchford made clear to me was that they want Grange Avenue reopened to traffic. This is a simple change that would reduce congestion and reduce journey times, but yet again the council is failing to listen.

I hope I have made it abundantly clear that opposition to low-traffic neighbourhoods is not about blanket opposition to policies designed to protect the environment and improve air quality. The problem we have in Warrington is that when car options are taken away, there are not many alternatives. The overwhelming majority of workplaces in Warrington are on the edge of the town, quite some distance from homes, and the opportunity to use public transport is limited, even though the Government have provided additional funding for buses. The replication of a London-style service is just not there yet. What I see in so many of the surveys that have taken place on low traffic neighbourhoods is that in areas of London where there is good public transport these schemes seem to work very well, but in areas around the UK where there is no alternative they struggle to get traction.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his generosity in giving way. On his points about buses, I often find the same challenge when there are consultations with bus users about changes to bus routes. Recently I met a community of bus users who told me about the challenges they have found with bus routes that have been changed, but they have not been consulted about what changes there will be to the buses they travel on. I am sure there were consultations, but there need to be more robust guidelines from Government and local government to the bus organisations themselves , so that they have to say, “This route is changing. What do you think about that, how will it change your life and what will be the impact of that?” I think that would go a long way to help reassure people that they are not going to suddenly find themselves without transport to hospitals, to work and in their daily lives.

[Andy Carter]

I am very grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. I know he is a fantastic champion for people living in Watford, which is a very similar town to Warrington in that it relies on public transport, particularly for older residents. He is absolutely right that, where changes are made, bus companies often think their message is being delivered to the users, and it simply is not. I think we should encourage everybody involved with delivering public transport solutions to deliver a message time and again, so that that message really gets through to the constituents who need it.

Copyright (Rights and Remuneration of Musicians, etc.) Bill

Debate between Andy Carter and Dean Russell

Friday 3rd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dean Russell]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. As a fan of Peter Kay, I know he does an incredibly good sketch—I recommend it to anyone who can find it, but especially on his own DVDs—in which he explains quite a good story about getting wrong the lyrics of famous songs. I strongly recommend that my hon. Friend continues to do that, even though what she did back in those days may have been on the border of what we were allowed to do.

I say this because there is an important point here about discovery, such as the discovery of new artists and the discovery of new musicians. One of the challenges I find with the Bill—as I say, I am very supportive of its principles—is that streaming platforms do provide a great opportunity to find new artists. Not all of them do it to make money just off that platform, but also refer people to TikTok or other platforms to explore their other artwork, forms of art or music, as well as to help tell different types of stories.

[Andy Carter]

One of the great pleasures of coming into this House was meeting the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). I remember, having worked in radio, hearing his songs on the radio, including “Loch Lomond” from his days in Runrig. I was able to go away and listen to his songs, and in fact I have some of them on my phone now, so having listened to him speak, I can listen to him sing as well.

[Andy Carter]

Absolutely. One of the great advantages of the internet is that it has opened up to us so many artists, some of whom were, I have to say, before my day. The internet allows such discovery to continue in a way that perhaps would not have been possible without it.

[Dean Russell]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly powerful point, which highlights the immediacy for us now of music and of art in general, which I see with film and in many other areas. Recently, as a member of the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill, I was praising the Common Sense website, which states what age a child should be to watch a film. That has solved many arguments in families, who are able to find quickly not just the age rating for a film or television show but the recommended age at which a child could perhaps start watching things. With the conversations we can have, and the immediacy with which we can find information as well as music and movie soundtracks, the interconnectivity that we have through culture is incredible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Carter]

I thank my hon. Friend for that, as he pre-empted exactly what I was going to say next. We are talking about £4.7 billion of spending in the UK economy, which was an increase of 6% of the prior year. UK music tourism is crucial, and it is so important that we have live performances back in concert venues, pubs and locations across the UK. Our music industry is a critical national asset. It makes us feel good. It enriches our lives with tunes that get into our head and make us tap our feet, and it really does set the mood for the nation. What we do in legislation in this space could have profound implications.

[Dean Russell]

What my hon. Friend has just said is so important. The music industry contributes to not only tourism and the economy, but the culture of this country. So if we rush into legislation without making sure we have engaged with every possible partner and every possible organisation, we could get it wrong and therefore have dramatically bad effects for everyone. We need to support our artists—I am very supportive of the principles of the Bill—but we have got to get it right.

[Andy Carter]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. We have to accept that we are talking about a global industry, and it is possible today to pick up a business and locate it anywhere in the world. If we make legislation in this country that makes it difficult to do business, we will see global businesses deciding to go and locate in other countries. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) mentioned K-pop, and we should be very aware of what is going on in Asia. It is easy for international businesses to identify different markets, build on those phenomena and generate significant revenues from elsewhere in the world.

The developments we have seen over the last 20 years, from music lovers being able to walk into Our Price or HMV and buy a CD to a model where they can have any sort of music instantly available on their phone simply by saying the name into a smart speaker, have changed the game completely and in a way that most of us could not have imagined 20 years ago.

This private Member’s Bill follows on from Parliament’s inquiry into the economics of streaming. At a base level, it seeks to alter the artist-label relationship through copyright law reforms to rights ownership and how revenue stemming from an artist’s recording is shared out. Actually, the way in which streaming moneys are split between an artist and the label or distributor they work with on their recordings is entirely dependent on how each individual record and distribution deal is reached. The artist could receive anything from a few per cent. to 100% of the money they generate. That is based on the contract they sign when they enter into business.

Although the Bill raises some critical issues—I support action on many of the themes that have arisen in today’s era of streaming—some unintended consequences may arise from it. Those need to be discussed because, although I want to see change, I also want to ensure that future generations of British artists receive the investment that they deserve. On the back of the Select Committee inquiry, the Government are already working with the sector to assess the market for all stakeholders through the Competition and Markets Authority, the IPO and DCMS, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say shortly.

We need to have a data-driven and evidence-based approach to such a complex and important issue. The arguments that underpin the Bill are emotionally compelling, but I am afraid that they incorrectly play on the David versus Goliath narrative. I have seen headlines saying that artists are not earning from streaming, but streaming has actually provided artists with greater success than the CD era. The shares of label revenue that artists receive are higher than they were in the past. Artist remuneration has risen to 46% of overall revenue, compared with an increase in label revenues of 31%, meaning that artists are claiming a larger share of streaming revenue than they have done traditionally.

Other terms have also improved in the artist’s favour, including sharing equity in streaming services, digital breakage and writing off unrecouped balances, as well as royalty rates increasing. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart)—I want to refer to him as the hon. Member for Runrig—said that one of the challenges he faced was that his unrecouped revenues were never reached, so he never earned any money. Artists are talking action on that, and I am pleased that they are being listened to.

A study of musicians’ pay by the IPO showed that between 2008 and 2019 artists and composers have seen their earnings rise faster than those of record labels. The intentions behind the Bill do not reflect those advances, and are not supported by the robust data and evidence delivered by independent academics in the IPO’s recent report.

The set of legislative proposals included in the Bill, although well intentioned, could actually harm the very model that has underpinned the industry’s renaissance. The focus needs to be on securing better deals with streaming companies. I was really struck by the comments of the former CEO of EMI Records, Tony Wadsworth, who suggested that if Bill were passed today,

“these proposals would create huge uncertainty, a mountain of red tape and make the U.K. a terrible place for investment in music.”

We do need to do something, but that something needs support from across the sector. I would argue that we need to see the outcome of the investigations by the CMA before any changes in the Bill are actually brought into force.

In business, and particularly in the music business, I am afraid that we see a need for instant gratification and success, and music labels are the only players that can tackle that. Their long game is what is really critical. We need to take their views seriously and recognise their concerns about this Bill. Successful artists from the 1980s funded investment into new artists in the 1990s, which in turn funded investment into the young artists of the 2000s. Artists such as the Pet Shop Boys, Radiohead, Robbie Williams, Coldplay and many others were supported by that investment in their early years, and that music ecosystem will continue to support music artists in the future.

Labels will continue to invest huge amounts each year in emerging talent through artists and repertoire, the music industry’s equivalent of research and development. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) indicated earlier that the amount of money being spent could be cut. I suggest to her that if we look at the music business around the world, 30% R&D is what is happening in all markets. I am afraid I do not see that changing any time soon, because if businesses could find a way to reduce that, I think they would; it would be an incentive to businesses to be able to reduce it at an early stage.

However, there is no denying that the new cast of characters in the market, such as Spotify, Apple Music and content platforms such as YouTube, have changed the game. When physical sales were king, the top 10 artists were twice as dominant in earnings terms as they are now. With streaming, considerably more new talent can build up a real fan base, while popular established acts are able to find new audiences and become timeless.

I am not suggesting there is nothing to fix. Music is being devalued and musicians’ earnings are being impacted. Ad-funded streaming services are not paying fairly for the music that drives their business, and that is an issue we should absolutely tackle. YouTube accounted for more than 20% of streaming consumption in the UK last year, but generated only £35 million in royalties, £20 million less than artists and labels earned from good old-fashioned vinyl records. The question we should really ask is how such services can get away with paying so little.

The market is by no means perfect but, unlike the giants of free content, subscription-based streaming services enable more artists to share in the money they make from music. In my view, the contemporary music landscape is much wider, and I fear the Bill will harm chances for newer and more diverse artists and businesses that have either escaped the old-world paradigm, or grown up in the newer, more open ecosystem in which many businesses flourish today.

I turn briefly to the term “equitable remuneration”, which is often used. I make no bones about this: I am afraid equitable remuneration will not mean fair payment in the sense that it is commonly understood. I have heard a number of hon. Members on the Opposition Benches talking about fair pay for a fair day’s work. I am afraid equitable remuneration will not deliver that in the sense that they perhaps believe it will.

Analysis by the Association of Independent Music suggests that applying ER to streaming will not address income inequality in music. In fact, the top 1% will get richer at everybody else’s expense. There is an argument that ER favours the old world over the new, or artists who have had success in the CD era and before over the new generations of diverse creators and entrepreneurs who are succeeding in the digital age. I want to see all artists rewarded fairly, but we need to create that environment when we have all the information to do so.

The industry would not know whether it would have 70 years or 20 years in which to recoup its investments if the Bill moved forward, because of the flexibility it would allow for contracts to be terminated. That would have a major influence on how much labels would be able to invest in new signings, new recordings and marketing, and on the terms they would offer in new deals.

As the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) said earlier, there are some practical problems for multiple performers, where revocation by a single performer would prevent continued commercialisation of a record. I recognise that when she responded to my question, she said there was much more to look into in that particular area, and I suggest that that is a real-world problem that the Bill does not necessarily address.

As I said earlier, I believe we need to see changes to fairly reward artists and grow the music sector in the most effective way to benefit artists. The UK is the second biggest exporter of recorded music in the world—one in 10 songs streamed globally is by a British artist—but I am afraid that the Bill would put that model at risk. The legislation would seek to only hasten the decline if large labels decided to invest more in overseas territories than in the UK. On that basis, I urge the Minister and DCMS to do more work before we take the Bill forward.