Bus Services

Andy Sawford Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Westminster Hall

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries, for what I think is the second time. I am pleased to have secured a debate on the availability of bus services, an issue that affects Members of all parties, across the whole country.

Bus services are vital lifelines that connect together the places in our constituencies. They take people to work, children to school and shoppers to the high street, but as we all recognise from the experience in our localities, the frequency, quality and affordability of local bus services is, on the whole, decreasing.

In Corby in east Northamptonshire, the local county council has cut its subsidy by 55% since 2010—the largest such cut anywhere in the country. At the same time, Northamptonshire county council has imposed on my constituents a programme of switching off street lights, which has resulted in half of all the lights going out. With no buses and no street lights, it is no wonder that many of my constituents have told me that they feel like a prisoner in their own home. If we take into account the poor state of repair of our roads and the giant potholes we see all over Corby and east Northamptonshire, it is clear that road conditions and the local transport infrastructure are in a much worse condition today than when the Government came to power.

Before I turn to specific issues in my constituency, I want to speak briefly about the national context. Across England fares have been rising, services have been cut and passenger numbers are falling. The shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), made a series of freedom of information requests to upper-tier councils earlier this year. He found that local authority bus subsidies across shire counties and unitary authorities have been cut by 23% in real terms since 2010-11, and has said:

“It couldn’t be clearer to local residents that vital front-line services are disappearing dramatically as cuts to councils intensify.”

He also warned, as I do, that elderly and disabled residents were being left stranded at home. The Local Government Association has said that

“elderly and disabled people will be left…with a free bus pass in one hand but no local buses to travel on in the other.”

The Campaign for Better Transport said in December last year that cuts to bus services were reaching what it called “critical levels”, and warned that soon whole networks would begin to disappear.

The Government cannot claim that they were not warned about the effects of cuts to bus subsidies. A report published by the Select Committee on Transport in 2011 warned that cuts to council budgets by central Government, combined with changes to other support mechanisms such as the bus service operators grant and concessionary fares, had led to some authorities withdrawing subsidised bus services with “inadequate or no consultation”—those were the Committee’s words—affecting some of the most vulnerable people in society.

The Minister will no doubt try to tell us that responsibility for such decisions lies with local authorities, but as the Local Government Association points out, councils know how important buses are for their communities and local economies and are trying to protect them. However, councils have had a 40% core funding reduction over this Parliament—the biggest funding reduction in the public sector. People should be in no doubt that cuts to bus services across the country are a result of the policies of this Government. There have been massive cuts to council budgets, which are compounded by their hugely unfair distribution; some of the wealthiest areas of the country have seen their resources increase. This is from a Government who are putting a tax cut for the richest ahead of the services that many people rely on.

The Minister will no doubt tell us that it is all okay. That is simply another indication to my constituents of just out of touch the Government are. Out in the real world, people know there are fewer services. I was door-knocking in my constituency recently and met a gentleman who pointed to the bus stop outside his house and told me that it had been replaced. Now, we might have thought that he would be happy, but he said that no buses had run down his street for years, so to him it was an insult that the bus stop had been replaced. To me, that is a symbol of the Government policy on buses: a new bus stop, but no buses. All of this is happening despite projections of 40% more traffic on the road by 2035—those are the Government’s own projections—at a time when rising fuel costs make it much more expensive for people to fill up the tank in their car, and under a Government who promised to be the greenest ever, yet are allowing bus services to be cut when those services can help reduce carbon by keeping cars off the road.

Bus services are vital for many people across my constituency, which is very large and contains five towns—one large industrial town, Corby, and four smaller market towns—and many villages over a large area of Northamptonshire. Many constituents have written or spoken to me about the lack of services and the problems they experience with those services that remain. I have travelled around by bus to talk to passengers and have conducted an online survey of people’s views and experiences. Over 80% of my constituents told me that they have noticed a decrease in services over recent years. Less than a quarter told me that they were happy with the quality and affordability of bus services in their area. Many people told me that they would use services more if they were more frequent.

My concern is that if things continue as they are, those who say that they use services sometimes will become “never” users, as we go further on a downward spiral, with cuts to subsidies meaning ever poorer provision of services, which in turn drives away passengers. The cuts may look okay on a spreadsheet, but a self-fulfilling prophecy comes about: if people are less able to access or rely on bus services, usage goes down and down until no services are left. Some constituents have told me that they can make a journey one way, and so might be able to get from their village to, for example, Peterborough; but what is the use of that if they have no confidence that they will be able to get home again? They therefore stop using the buses and either do not travel at all or find some alternative means.

There is another way: we could make those people who tell me that they sometimes travel on buses become regular passengers. Some 90% of the constituents who filled out my survey said that they would use buses more if services were better. We see examples of that all around the country, not least here in London, where Members of Parliament can see how beneficial regular and reliable bus services are to people.

My constituents raised a number of areas where they would like to see improvements. A key issue was having more suitable bus shelters, including ones that have seats for people to use while they wait and give better shelter from wind and rain in the winter. There are issues for wheelchair users and those who are blind and deaf. I know that many Members from across the House will have taken part in a talking buses awareness event organised by the Guide Dogs charity. I am pleased that my party has promised that we will seek to expand the UK fleet of buses fitted with audio-visual systems.

Many constituents raised concerns about the lack of bus services after 7 pm or 8 pm and on Sundays. They told me about many specific services. In east Northamptonshire, those include the Nene Valley Traveller service, or No. 23, from Peterborough to Oundle via Wansford, Kings Cliffe and Nassington, which was one of the first casualties of the county council’s cuts. That cut has left the entire northern part of my constituency with no public transport except for services subsidised by local supermarkets on a weekly basis.

Constituents have told me that they would like the No. 49 and No. 50 Stagecoach services to run much later in the evening. The last bus from Kettering to Irthlingborough, for example, runs at 10 minutes to 8 each weekday, so people cannot travel and access services later in the evening.

People want a direct route to Peterborough from Raunds and Thrapston at weekends, which would be hugely beneficial. There is demand for Sunday services to Irchester and Raunds and a better service to Finedon on Sundays. The X4 service between Oundle and Peterborough stops too early in the evening, and constituents have told me that that means having to spend upwards of £30 on a taxi from the train station to Oundle when the buses stop running. My constituent Amanda Swain of Thrapston told me that her son had to obtain special dispensation from his school to arrive after assembly because he could not catch a bus from Thrapston to Kettering early enough to get him there.

My constituents in Corby would like a direct bus service from the Kingswood estate to Asda. At the moment, they have to take two buses, sometimes with a 30-minute delay in-between. They also want a bus service from Kingswood to the Earlstrees estate, because many people work in the town. Throughout Corby, the issue of late buses comes up time and again.

Richard Mills, a constituent, told me that the £2.10 all-day ticket—I purchased one the other day and travelled around Corby—is real value, but we need a better bus service after 6 pm because people have to go to and from shifts at work. Whether they are at work or having a day out, if they return to the train station in Corby after 6 pm, there is no bus to take them home.

I have been told that the X1 is also bad and never runs on time. It takes people to hospital in Kettering, so it is particularly important. My constituents are disappointed that there is only one bus shelter at Oakley Vale for the 19 service to Corby town.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Andy Sawford]

My constituents have been telling me about a range of issues locally, and I want to finish by putting a few more of those on the record. Of course, I will then be raising them with Stagecoach, Centrebus and others. If there is any way in which the Minister can assist us, too, that will of course be welcome, but it seems to me that many of them are about looking locally at the services and whether we can improve particular services.

The X4 route in Corby no longer uses Colyers avenue, which is disappointing for those residents. There is a lack of service to the Patrick road area of Corby—an issue that many people have raised with me. Sionah Rielly has told me that Stephenson way does not have a very good service and has suggested that it would be a particular improvement to have a service that goes to Asda in the town. The CallConnect service is very useful, I am told. Many people find it useful, but it does not provide access to the railway station at Corby. That means that many of my constituents who use that service have to rely on taxis, which are expensive.

My constituent, Ann-Marie Leonard, summarised all the issues when she told me:

“It’s a real problem that the local buses all finish running by 7pm. Unless you use a car or a taxi you can’t go to the theatre, adult education, swimming, tennis club, bingo, Asda late night shopping, visit friends, support elderly relatives…well, anything! Kids can’t get the bus home from youth clubs or Adrenaline Alley or sports clubs. And now there are medical centres that open until 8pm”—

we are pleased that we have the Corby urgent care centre—

“but you can’t have a late appointment if there isn’t a bus running that late. It’s like living under curfew”.

Corby’s local economy is such that many people work shifts, often finishing after the buses stop running or before they start running in the mornings. That means that lots of my constituents walk home or travel by bicycle. That is okay on a long summer day, such as today, for some of my constituents, but in the winter, when it is cold and dark and the street lights are out, my constituents are rightly concerned about their travel to and from work.

Then there are those travelling further afield. Paula Boulton told me that Corby is in effect

“marooned from the rest of the county”.

Anyone who can brave the X4 via Wellingborough to get to the county town of Northampton, she says, is a hardy soul.

There are two main operators in my constituency. Centrebus runs through Thrapston and Raunds and has, more than any other bus service, been causing my constituents particularly high levels of grief. Lateness and breakdowns of buses have been experienced frequently, as has the failure of buses even to turn up. I have provided details to Centrebus of specific occasions when buses have not turned up, but I have not had a very good response. It has shrugged off those experiences as isolated incidents and denied the existence of any real problems, yet every time I have a surgery in Thrapston, for example, constituents will come to tell me about continuing problems with Centrebus. That is partly about the ageing vehicles that operate on the route. That is why I have written to the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency to raise my constituents’ concerns about the vehicles themselves: it has a role in regulating or inspecting the quality of buses used for public transport purposes. I will follow that up, but I would be grateful if the Minister could provide me with any help or advice that I can share with my constituents about the quality of the buses themselves, because that is important to the reliability of the services.

I can contrast that with Stagecoach. I was delighted to help it to launch a new fleet of double-decker buses. It was very proud of the handmade Italian leather seats. They did look very smart. They are mostly modern buses. Those buses were in east Northamptonshire. The bus that I rode on yesterday in Corby was also a very good modern bus.

I have received some complaints about services from Stagecoach, and of course it would expect me to acknowledge that its services are not always up to scratch, but I have to say that I have been incredibly impressed with it—with its staff, its bus drivers and its managing director. I heard on Radio Northampton the other day, in response to my questioning the level of cuts in the county, the county council cabinet member for transport, Councillor Michael Clarke, saying that the level of cuts to services has not been equivalent to the level of cuts to funding. He is right, but my view is that the county council takes little credit for that. It is actually because of the way in which Stagecoach has worked to keep a lot of the routes going and to keep the network going as far as possible.

I have been very impressed by the fact that Stagecoach has been very open to discussing with me the concerns that constituents have raised. For example, there was a campaign in Corby a year ago, when significant changes were proposed, and the managing director, Steve Burd, came to my office, talked to me about those concerns and addressed many of them as far as he could. But clearly Stagecoach is a commercial company. It is trying to optimise what is delivered in the public interest while of course having its own targets to maintain as a profit-making entity. I think that it does that as well as we could expect it to. I wanted to put that on the record.

Sometimes overlooked in debates about the availability of bus services is how important they are to young people. Before I close, I would like to raise some issues that affect young people in my constituency, many of whom use buses to get to school, whether they are going to schools in Corby or across east Northamptonshire. For example, young constituents in places such as Kings Cliffe and Thrapston travel to Prince William school and constituents in Irthlingborough and Raunds travel to Kettering, Wellingborough or even to Corby to access services.

There is one particular issue that I shall ask both Front Benchers to think about. It may have been raised with them previously. I am talking about what seems to parents and young people I meet to be an inconsistency in relation to the fact that young people are now required to stay on at school until they are 18. I believe that giving our young people that extra opportunity in terms of education and training is the right thing to do in order to have the skilled work force that this country needs, but they do have to pay the costs of transport, which can be very high for them or for their parents, from the age of 16 to 18, and that is of course if the services are available. I would be grateful for any response on that and any encouragement to my constituents that there may be some way of dealing with those concerns.

Looking forward, I am very keen to try to make services better. At local level, I will work closely and constructively with Stagecoach, and, as I said, it is open to finding new ways to improve services. Indeed, when I have talked to people from Stagecoach about businesses that might want to make contributions, they have been very open to looking at that and whether it could be viable.

Corby borough council plays an important role. In the past, it has negotiated section 106 agreements that have helped to fund bus services, including, for example, services up to Priors Hall. I will be asking that council and East Northants district council what further plans they have to help to maintain local services. In east Northants, the new Rushden Lakes development could be a source of both funding and demand, possibly acting as a form of local hub for services. I am keen that we look at and investigate that and see whether it would help us to improve bus services and, in particular, the connections in that part of the county.

Community and voluntary transport schemes have a role to play. In my view, they should be in addition to, rather than a replacement for, core public bus services, but they do have a role to play. I recently opened the new CANDO day centre for older people in Raunds. It has volunteer drivers who provide transport so that people can get there. I pay tribute to the people involved in that—the volunteers. In Corby, there is interest in developing a new community transport scheme. Again, I would appreciate any advice from the Front Benchers on how we can turn that into a reality and particularly on whether there are any grants that could help or any good practical examples that we could look at to help us to find a way forward.

In the longer term, the key is to take a much more strategic approach to how we provide bus services. Quality partnerships can be important to that, and there are quality partnerships across the country, but I want to see quality contracts being adopted. Those were a welcome idea on the part of the previous Government, but experience shows that it has been difficult in practice to get them agreed locally, although I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) is going to tell us that there will be a beacon in the north-east that we can all look to in order to see how to get them agreed. I am encouraged by the fact that Labour Front Benchers are looking at how a future Labour Government could make the adoption of quality contracts possible across the country, making them much more widespread.

I hope today’s debate will keep bus services high on the agenda. I hope local operators and other local partners will respond to many of the issues I have put on the record, which constituents have raised with me. I would like to think that Northamptonshire county council will take some notice and consider the effect of its decision to cut bus services more than any other county. I will not hold my breath, but I hope the county council will listen, because we are talking about not just my constituents, but the council’s residents. I hope that local operators—particularly Stagecoach, which is generally good—and other key local partners, including district councils, businesses and the voluntary sector, will work with me. Together, we can improve the bus services in our local area, despite the difficult financial context we face.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Hammond]

The Minister certainly will. I am happy to read out the ridership numbers, but there is nothing in those numbers that suggests there has been an increasing rate of decline in bus use since 2010. That is simply true. I am happy to check my facts in the Library. I have the numbers before me, and I can read them out if the hon. Gentleman wants them. The fact of the matter is that the numbers do not support his argument.

It is true, of course, that bus usage and access to buses are important for a healthy, growing economy. The recent survey by the university of Leeds reinforces that point. Bus commuters generate some £64 billion in economic output, and one in five journeys is a journey to work. Shopping and leisure trips generate annual value of some £27 billion.

The Government, far from what is suggested in some portrayals, remain committed to improving bus services, and expenditure on buses reflects that: 42% of all bus operator income comes from public funds. This year, the Government will spend more than £1 billion on concessionary travel entitlement and more than £340 million in direct subsidy to bus operators in England. More than £300 million has been allocated to funding major bus projects in the last year; that is on top of the provision through the better bus areas fund to deliver improvements in 24 local authorities, which cost more than £70 million, and the £20 million to support community transport. Many bus improvement schemes have also been funded as part of the £600 million local sustainable transport fund.

A total of £95 million has also been provided for four rounds of the green bus fund to improve environmental performance. We are also jointly funding a three-year project with Norfolk county council to determine a delivery model for smart ticketing across England, recognising that smarter ticketing will continue to drive easier access. In the 2013 spending review, we protected bus spending until the end of 2015-16, despite the current economic circumstances. All that demonstrates a commitment that was not recognised in some of the contributions.

The Government recognise that improvements can and must be made. In 2012, our document “Green Light for Better Buses” set out our plans for buses. The proposals included reforming bus subsidy, improving competition and incentivising partnership working. The hon. Member for Corby gave a clear example of what partnership working can deliver in his support for Stagecoach, some of the services that it is delivering, and the way that it has improved a number of them. Improving partnership working is increasingly important.

There is no doubt that these are challenging economic times. Government and local authorities have had to make difficult decisions about some spending priorities, but we want to ensure that the bus market is still attractive to all operators—large and small, urban and rural—by ensuring that funding is allocated in the fairest way, giving the best value for taxpayers and ensuring the best service.

[Andy Sawford]

For the record, the services that I mentioned have not improved; they have been reduced significantly. My praise for Stagecoach relates to it having worked with me to keep as many buses on the road as possible. If the Minister’s argument rests on saying that rider numbers are not declining any more steeply than in previous years, it is a pretty disappointing argument. The Minister for Transport ought to set out a vision of how to improve public transport. People still need to get to work, of course, as my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) illustrated; they now just have to wait for an hour, or two hours, and struggle to access bus services that should be much more reliable and available.

[Stephen Hammond]

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will have noticed, I remarked a moment ago that we have set out a vision for how to improve bus services throughout this country and a view on how we can ensure better services in various areas. I will make some remarks about rural buses in a moment. However, neither he nor I can ignore the trend of declining ridership, whereas for the deregulated rail service, ridership has doubled since privatisation. The idea that we can simply ignore the numbers is not true.

The bus service operators grant has been paid directly to bus operators. To be fair, it has been paid for many years in a blunt and relatively untargeted way based on fuel consumption. Local authorities have told us that they can make the bus subsidy deliver better value for money by working in partnership with bus operators to grow the bus market. As several hon. Members have pointed out, the characteristics of local bus markets differ, so different solutions will undoubtedly be appropriate in different local areas. The Government therefore believe that it is for local authorities to decide which route to pursue. This year, £43 million in BSOG funding will be paid directly to local authorities rather than bus operators; that will relate to the services that councils fund. That will give communities more control over how the money is spent. The funding is now ring-fenced until the end of 2016-17 to provide a period of stability.

The hon. Member for Corby asked several questions, one of which involved concerns about the quality of Centrebus. He will know that all vehicles must meet the relevant standards for roadworthiness enforced by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. If he has any concerns about that, I will be delighted to help him ensure that the DVSA undertakes that operation. He also discussed the poor reliability of service. Again, that is entirely a matter for the traffic commissioner; I encourage him and his constituents to raise any concerns with the traffic commissioner, who has powers to take regulatory action against operators that are failing to deliver the service that they are contracted to deliver.

The Government are also committed to protecting the national bus travel concession, which is of huge benefit to about 11 million people, allowing free off-peak local travel anywhere in England. The concession provides older and disabled people with greater freedom, independence and a lifeline to their community. It enables access to facilities in local areas, helps them keep in touch with family and friends and brings benefits to the wider economy. The issue of young people’s travel and fare levels is complex. There is no statutory obligation to provide discounted-price travel to young people. Many commercial and publicly funded reductions are available.

Bus services in rural areas do not depend only on public funding. Commercial operators will provide services in areas where there are enough passengers, and overall commercial mileage in very rural areas of Britain has increased rather than decreased over the past year. However, the Government accept that where commercial services are not feasible, local authorities must and do play a vital role in supporting rural bus services. Almost 30% of bus mileage is in predominately rural authorities, and it is therefore for local authorities to decide what is the best support to put in place in response to local views.

It is vital that local authorities have the opportunity to maximise the funding that they provide. To help with that, last year my Department met its commitment to publish revised guidance to local authorities on best practice when procuring local bus services and other types of road passenger transport. Although I recognise that a lot of innovative and hard work is done by councils all over the country, there is certainly scope to do more. The best practice document sets out some really good practice and highlights some of what local authorities can achieve.

Providing bus transport solutions in rural areas can be challenging. Undoubtedly, the traditional fixed-route service operating to a timetable cannot be and has not always been appropriate. The combination of lower passenger numbers and longer journeys can also put pressure on funding. That is why many local authorities, learning from best practice, are considering other solutions, whether they involve supporting community buses provided by voluntary services, dial-a-ride or other types of demand-responsive transport such as taxis and minicabs. My Department is undertaking further work to examine the barriers to procurement of better types of service, and we are committed to ensuring that that knowledge is spread through the industry.

In conclusion, this Government believe in buses. Since 2012, we have set out a clear vision for a better bus service with more of what passengers want: punctual, interconnected services, greener and more fully wheelchair-accessible buses, and widely available smart ticketing. That will encourage more passengers to use the network, cut carbon and encourage economic growth.