Bus Services (Yorkshire and Humber)

Angela Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. Before I start the debate, I should apologise for being unable to stay for the entire afternoon. The debate was originally scheduled for 9.30 this morning, but owing to the funeral of Baroness Thatcher, the business of the House begins at 2.30 this afternoon, as hon. Members are aware. However, because I have had a meeting, in Parliament, with two constituents arranged since January and because those constituents had purchased their rail tickets in advance, I could not put them off, so I hope that you, Mr Howarth, the Minister, the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), and all other colleagues present will forgive me for leaving early in what I hope they agree are exceptional circumstances.

It is a pleasure to open this debate on a subject that at first glance might seem rather complex and perhaps a little esoteric, but what we are about to debate is very far from that. In fact, it is fundamental to the future of so many people, especially young people, who are desperate for work, education or training—not just in Yorkshire and the Humber, but throughout the country. I am absolutely certain of that. Why did I choose such a seemingly long title for the debate, as on the Order Paper? I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), who has been extremely active, both in her constituency and throughout the region, in drawing attention to a matter that, unless it is resolved soon, could well make the difference between renewed economic growth and further decline. It really is that important. Like me, she felt that it was not possible to reduce the title of the debate any further, because it was essential to include all the issues that needed to be discussed.

It might be helpful to hon. Members if I first remind them of the background to bus services in England outside London. In October 1986, the late Baroness Thatcher’s Conservative Government first deregulated bus services, allowing private contractors to run registered routes commercially and in competition with one another, and to tender for registered routes that were deemed to be unprofitable and were therefore subsidised by local ratepayers, later to become council tax payers of course. Local authorities were no longer allowed to run their own not-for-profit bus services, so the famous Sheffield buses, which in the mid-’80s cost as little as 2p per journey across the city, were doomed.

Contrary to popular belief at the time, I understand that many business rate payers in the centre of Sheffield were angry, because although their rates were relatively high, the cheapness of bus fares from the outlying villages and suburbs of the great city of Sheffield meant that city centre shops were always busy and profitable for their owners. Once the subsidies stopped and the routes became commercialised, the fares went up sharply, often putting them beyond the reach of many in the city and its outlying areas. A measure that was intended to lower bus fares through competition increased them massively in some cases.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the other impact of deregulation in cities such as Sheffield was proportionately to increase the number of cars on the road and to decrease the number of people using local public transport?

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention. I remember clearly that in October 1986 the route that I used to travel from my then home in Armley, Leeds, to the city centre was via the Armley gyratory—a massive roundabout and huge junction on the western side of Leeds. Up to that point in October 1986, the traffic queue was not that great at 8.30 in the morning, but I remember that, immediately following deregulation, the queues trebled. Everyone had got on the buses, but they suddenly became much more expensive. That had been predicted by the Labour Opposition and by the local authority, of which I was about to become a member.

In my city of Leeds, the former City and the former West Yorkshire bus services became a commercial company—some may recall that it was called Yorkshire Rider—and it made a small number of former public servants very wealthy as they became managers of a cash-rich commercial service mandatorily divorced from the public service that they once received a salary to operate. Other commercial operators entered the field, but were soon swallowed up by Yorkshire Rider, which did not like the competition. Eventually, of course, Yorkshire Rider itself was swallowed up by an even larger concern, so that today there is a virtual monopoly in Leeds, with First Bus operating almost all commercial bus services not just in Leeds, but in Bradford, Wakefield and the surrounding districts of West Yorkshire. What was once a public service had become a cash generator, and the travelling public, so dependent on buses, were left to pay the cost of ever-increasing fares, caused by the need to make a profit and the sharply rising fuel prices that added to the misery.

I shall spare my colleagues the history of the fiasco of the Leeds Supertram during the past 10 years. Suffice it to say that the lack of any alternative public transport to the bus network in Leeds has made buses even more critical for non-car owners. The Labour Government, however, tried to do something for bus passengers—I will refrain from calling them customers—with the concept of quality bus contracts. In government, Labour legislated to enable local authorities to reverse bus deregulation in their area by introducing a quality contract—in effect, a move to tendered bus services.

Under a quality contract, the accountable transport authority sets the fares and plans the network, while private operators bid to run the services. That model exists in London, where deregulation of the bus network never took place. A number of Labour-run integrated transport authorities are consulting on introducing quality contracts for their local bus services. This Government claim that they will not block transport authorities from pursuing quality contracts, yet they are reforming bus funding in a way that creates a financial disincentive for councils to go down that route.

Department for Transport guidelines for local transport authorities applying for funding from the new better bus area fund state that only voluntary partnerships with bus operators, not quality contracts, will be eligible for funding:

“Bus services can thrive in areas where local authorities and bus operators work together to identify and solve problems, so proposals will only be considered if supported by key bus operator(s).”

The source for that quote is the Department for Transport’s “Better Bus Area Fund: Guidance for Bidders”, published in December 2011.

Labour published a paper containing a number of proposals to reform local transport, as part of the policy review entitled “Empowering communities to improve transport”. The proposals would enable transport authorities to improve local bus services through greater regulatory powers over fares and routes, and a new statutory power for the Secretary of State for Transport to designate bus deregulation exemption zones.

My hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), the shadow Secretary of State for Transport, said in her speech to the 2011 Labour party conference:

“Devolving funding and decision making over transport is making a real difference in our cities. But in government we didn’t go far enough. That’s why our policy review has been looking at how we can devolve more transport responsibilities.”

She referred, among other things, to local and regional rail services.

How, then, does all that relate to the support necessary for young people in our region and throughout the country to be able to access jobs, training or education? Perhaps the Yorkshire Post put it best, when on 28 February this year it said:

“SPENDING on buses could give Ministers a quicker and cheaper way to help the economy than investing in ‘big ticket’ transport infrastructure, according to a new report.

The research found bus services in England’s major urban areas outside London are responsible for economic benefits worth around £2.5bn.

The report from pteg”—

the Passenger Transport Executive Group—

“which represents passenger transport executives such as Metro and SYPTE”—

the South Yorkshire passenger transport executive—

“in Yorkshire, suggests grants to bus operators generate £2.80 for every £1 spent while every £1 used to support concessionary fares generates £1.50.

It also found that the majority of the bus industry’s £5bn turnover every year is ploughed back into the areas where operators work through their supply chains and because their staff live in the area.

Pteg chairman David Brown said: ‘This report suggests that whilst there is a great deal of focus on big transport infrastructure schemes as a way of generating growth, the urban bus also deserves more attention from policy makers.

Investing more in the bus could be one of the biggest bargains there is for government in supporting big city economies, in getting the jobless back to work and in addressing some deep rooted, and ultimately costly, social challenges.’

The report was published yesterday as councillors in Barnsley raised concerns over the impact of poor transport links on the town’s economy. Councillors on the authority’s economy and skills scrutiny commission warned transport issues were harming efforts to help the long term unemployed back into work. Young people, particularly in the west of the district, were finding it ‘almost impossible’ to access apprenticeships because of poorly served bus routes, the commission found.

Commission chairman coun Dick Wraith said: ‘The council and its partners are doing everything they can to bring new jobs to Barnsley, and that hard work needs to continue.

However, we need to make sure that local people can get to the jobs that are out there, especially young people, who can lose out to older competitors who have their own transport and don’t need to rely on bus services to get them to work.’”

I thank the Yorkshire Post for that article.

Chris Waterman, of the Rural Access to Learning Group, contacted me to tell me what his group, which is concentrating on the connection between transport in rural areas and access to learning, especially for young people, is considering. He said that it is trying to promote a wide-ranging discussion at national and local level on the future development and funding of student transport in rural areas. Although many parts of our region of Yorkshire and the Humber are highly urbanised, it also has huge rural areas dotted with many villages where huge numbers of residents, especially young people, find themselves completely stranded without decent and affordable bus services.

Chris told me about a female student who started an evening course that finishes at 9 pm. She lives on a bus route, 3 miles from the college, but the service has recently been reduced and the last bus now passes her home at 8.15 pm. During the winter months, the student was understandably nervous about having to walk home in the dark and, having no access to a car, decided that she could not stay the course. I am glad to say that Chris told me that the college made an exception and funded taxi services for that student for that course at that time. Not all students are that lucky. Many will have to ditch their courses because they simply cannot get to and from college in time. RALG will produce a report on the issue, which will significantly contribute to the debate and, I hope, offer helpful solutions. I am grateful to Chris Waterman for his assistance and look forward to reading the proposals that RALG makes.

I hope that many hon. Members will contribute to the debate, so I will not take up too much more time, but important points need to be made and, to conclude, I would like to mention a few of them. First, Ministers promised that funding cuts would not lead to the loss of local bus services, yet many communities have seen significant reductions in vital services and fares have risen, on average, by double the rate of inflation. Secondly, the most vulnerable are the most affected by the loss of local bus services, with 35% of the 5.2 billion bus journeys each year in Britain made by those eligible for concessionary travel.

Thirdly, transport authorities that seek to use the legislation passed by the Labour Government to re-regulate bus services, giving them control over fares and routes, have found themselves frustrated by the bus companies and, I am afraid, a lack of support from the Government.

Fourthly, according to the Department for Transport’s own figures—the annual bus user statistics—bus fares increased by 6.5% in England from June 2011 to June 2012. That is 5.4% in London, 6.8% in metropolitan areas and 7.6% in non-metropolitan areas, in just one year. That means that bus fares have gone up, on average, by twice the rate of inflation, which is 3.2%, using the retail prices index rate. The Department’s figures suggest that fares have gone up by a third in five years.

Finally, the largest five bus operating companies in the UK, which jointly control more than 71% of the bus market, made combined operating profits in 2011-12 of more than half a billion pounds.

I hope that the debate highlights some of the key issues frustrating so many of our young people in their attempts to get work, training or education, whether they live in cities, towns or rural areas, whether in the Yorkshire and the Humber region or anywhere else in England.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth, for what I believe is the first time. It is also a pleasure to respond to the contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton). I noticed that on the Annunciator screen he was down as the Member for Midlothian—I did not know that Midlothian was in Yorkshire and Humber, but we learn something every day. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) was eloquent in her exposition of the needs of young people, particularly in south Yorkshire, and of the need to include young people in the decision-making process on bus services, which is something to which I will return later.

For all of us here today, the question of whether to catch a bus is a matter of genuine choice, because every Member of the House of Commons has, I believe, the means to buy a car. For us, whether to use public transport can be an environmental choice. We have the luxury of that position, but for many the choice is to catch a bus or to stay put and not travel at all. The option of private transport still does not exist for many of the elderly, the young, the disabled and the unemployed, and for different reasons. For those people, the bus is essential for getting to the shops, to school, to training, to work or even to that important job interview.

In the plethora of cuts announced by the coalition Government, it is often the cuts least talked about that do the greatest damage. In 2010, the Government cut by 28% the funding to councils for local transport and removed the ring-fencing from funding passed to councils from the Department for Communities and Local Government. In addition, the bus service operators grant was cut by 20%. The combined cuts have resulted in the removal of £500 million from support for bus services. With that level of cuts, it is no surprise that many people who use bus services believe that services have deteriorated in vast swathes of the country. To make matters worse, the cost of catching a bus has increased by double the rate of inflation in the past year alone.

As things stand, and if the cuts continue, it will become harder and harder for many communities to sustain the social mix that is essential to maintaining the lifeblood of, in particular, our rural areas. If those who cannot afford private transport have to move out of their villages and hamlets, all we will have left is lifeless commuter belts. The problem exists not just in the rural south. My constituency is made up of isolated villages and towns on the edge of the two major urban areas of Barnsley and Sheffield. There is often a misunderstanding in the House about rural areas: they do not belong just to the leafy home counties, as metropolitan areas can be made up of significant expanses of rural landmass. South Yorkshire is a good example, and indeed parts of west Yorkshire still have that status. It is the poor and the young who feel the effects of worsening bus services the most, and in the context of high and rising unemployment the problem has become acute.

In my constituency, which is the second wealthiest— for want of a better word—in Sheffield, the rise in unemployment among the young has been very rapid over the past three years; indeed, I think that the figure has increased by 100%. The increase has been far higher elsewhere in south Yorkshire, particularly in areas such as Rotherham, the Dearne, Barnsley East and Barnsley Central. Unemployment is rising among the young in those places, as it is nationally, and it is not hard, therefore, to imagine the difficulties faced by youngsters in the villages in my constituency.

Young people in villages such as Silkstone, Ingbirchworth, Penistone town, Oughtibridge and High Green are increasingly feeling the pinch because of the cost of bus services—the frequency of service can also be a problem. To access most public services, and to go to work or college or to engage in training, young people in my constituency must travel either to Barnsley or Sheffield, or even perhaps Huddersfield, Wakefield or Leeds. If they have to go over the border, so to speak, into west Yorkshire, the problem becomes particularly acute because they then deal with services run by two different integrated transport authorities. A young person—a local scout leader—frequently contacts me to tell me about the problems he experiences getting to school in Wakefield from, believe it or not, Penistone.

Young people in my area face journeys of many miles on services that are often infrequent, which is not ideal for meeting their needs, and very costly. A good example of the issues faced by many young people in rural and semi-rural areas are those encountered by my ex-part-time caseworker, Alex Guest. He is an intelligent, well-qualified graduate and a great employee, but he lives in the small town of Penistone, which, although in the Barnsley metropolitan district, is 12 miles from Barnsley town centre and 20 miles from the centre of Sheffield. His appointment to the job meant that he had to travel from Penistone to my office in Stocksbridge, which is only four miles away as the crow flies. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East pointed out, Barnsley has done some work on the difficulties that its young people face in getting to work. Penistone was highlighted in the report it produced, and Alex is a real-life example of why that report has been so important.

The distance between Stocksbridge and Alex’s home in Penistone is only four miles, but the bus service between the two towns is so bad that he could not get to my office to begin work at the usual start time of 9 am. That is impossible on a bus. He could not start work before 10 am and had to leave by 4 pm or face not being able to get home. He could not take a job four miles away from his house with an employer in the next town—a major employer, as there is still a big steel industry there—unless the job was flexible enough to allow him to work between 10 am and 4 pm. Fortunately, I was able to offer him the flexibility to ensure that he could work his hours around the bus service. It was possible for me to do that because he was part-time, but had I offered him a full-time post, I am not sure that I could have allowed him to take up the job offer permanently.

Unfortunately for many other young people, the flexibility that I could offer Alex is not always there and the chance to work is therefore denied them, as is the chance to earn an income and to improve themselves and their skills and prospects. In Alex’s case, I could offer him only part-time work, but the job he did for me gave him the experience, confidence and knowledge to go elsewhere. He now works full-time for another MP—a traitor, I have to say—who is sitting not far away from me: she took my employee from me, but I wish him all the best in his new job. Alex Guest is now contributing and paying his way in society, but I am not sure that that would necessarily be the case if I had not been able to offer him such flexibility.

Some local authorities are doing their best to mitigate the impact of Government cuts on bus services, especially in relation to young people. Praise will be given where it is due. I know that the Minister is an advocate for public transport from our various discussions on panels and in other contexts before the general election, when the Liberal Democrats were not in coalition with the Conservatives. I will put it on the record that the Minister helped to get the Sheffield bus partnership up and running, and we are ready to pay tribute to that work. I am told that the new bus partnership in Sheffield has improved things—not massively, but it has improved the situation—but that work does not go far enough.

The South Yorkshire integrated transport authority, with the support of better bus area funding, has introduced a scheme under which apprentices aged between 16 and 24 who are claiming jobseeker’s allowance can have free travel for up to three months. Young people in the same age group who are starting work that is expected to last at least 13 weeks and who have claimed JSA for at least 13 weeks can have free travel for four weeks. It also intends to improve the service by reducing the qualification threshold, so that the service can be extended to more young apprentices.

The South Yorkshire integrated transport authority is working closely with the four youth councils in south Yorkshire, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said. It is holding a young people’s bus summit with 40 young people next week, on 27 April, in Sheffield. The themes to be discussed, which I think she mentioned, are affordability, accessibility, availability and acceptability, which is an important and often overlooked point about bus services. That event alone demonstrates just how important bus services are for young people in south Yorkshire, an area which outsiders often forget is largely rural or semi-rural, like large parts of the rest of Yorkshire.

However, for our every success and step forward, there always seems to me to be a retreat. Part of Barnsley council’s groundbreaking and innovative approach was the Mi card, which, among other things, allowed all under-18s free travel on buses in the borough. Unfortunately, because of the council’s need to make savings, a charge of 30p per journey now applies. That means that the very good principle that we have extended to elderly people and those over 60 has been withdrawn from a section of the population that, in my view, needs it more than others, as they desperately need to find work and opportunities to extend their education and skills.

Although the schemes and efforts of south Yorkshire local authorities are welcome, they are often being put in place despite the Government, not because of them, which is the key problem. The facts, which were mentioned earlier, are that a third of bus journeys are made by people who are eligible for a concessionary fare, and two thirds of all journeys on public transport are made by bus. Those two statistics alone show us why we need frequent and affordable bus services. It is no good having a bus pass if there is no bus to catch, and it is no good having a bus if it is too expensive to catch for those of us who rely on buses. For young people, the latter point is key.

As some Members may be aware—the Minister is well aware of what has long been my position—I am a big proponent of re-regulating the buses. He was a member of the Local Transport Public Bill Committee that discussed re-regulation. The Local Transport Act 2008 went some way towards re-regulation, but the quality contracts on offer have not particularly taken root, partly because of the risks involved in integrated transport authorities wanting to take up the option, and also because of the failure of the Government to underwrite some of those risks to get beyond that first hurdle.

Re-regulation would give the rest of the country, particularly metropolitan areas such as Sheffield, Barnsley and Leeds, what London already enjoys and has never had taken away from it. However, the Government are determined that any area that pursues a quality contract should be excluded from better bus area funding. There is therefore not only an unwillingness—I do not know whether it is ideological—to support integrated transport authorities that want to develop quality contracts, but a penalty for developing one. That is wrong and has put many integrated transport authorities, such as the one serving my area, in the impossible position of having to accept the terms and condition placed on them by the Department for Transport to access any extra funding.

We need more public control and accountability in relation to our bus services, and those services need to take into consideration the people who use them and the role of reliable, frequent bus services that are environmentally friendly, have full disabled access and are clean and warm for the people using them. We all know that such services can play a big role in helping local economies to grow and improve, not least because, to return to the focus of this debate, such services are critical in getting young people where they need to be.

Above all, we need to recognise that if we fail our young people by not providing them with the bus services they need, their general opportunities through life will be curtailed. The damage done to young people who cannot access the opportunities that they need when they are 16, 17 or 18—the limitation on their mobility at that age—might have lifelong impacts. I am part of the generation who suffered in the recessions of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Many people of my generation have never fully recovered from the damage done to them by the very high levels of unemployment in areas such as south Yorkshire in the early 1980s, when opportunities in the steel and coal industries disappeared.

If we do the same to this generation of young people, I would not blame them for turning round to those of us responsible for giving them opportunities, and saying, “You failed us.” I therefore look to the coalition Government and the Minister for a response and a positive affirmation not only that young people are expected to find work and to improve their chances by attending further education and training opportunities, but that the coalition Government recognise their responsibility in making sure that young people can access those opportunities.

[Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)]

We have just over 50 minutes available, but I remind the two Front-Bench speakers that it is not obligatory to take up all that time—I can suspend the sitting if necessary.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

I will probably not require 44 minutes to respond to the debate, Mr Howarth. I welcome this topic, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) for how he presented it. I am sorry that he is not here, but I fully accept his reasons. He is—not everybody in the House is, although perhaps I will get myself into difficulties—an honourable Member and a man of integrity, so I have no problem with the reason that he gave for not being here for the winding-up speeches. I thank him in his absence for securing time to discuss bus travel for young people in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

As I know from my constituency and from my role as a Minister, and as has been said this afternoon, buses are a lifeline for many people, including young people. They provide access to jobs, schools, health care and social activities. Good bus services contribute to both the Government’s key transport objectives: creating growth and cutting carbon. By providing an attractive alternative to the car, we can reduce not only harmful emissions, but, at the same time, the congestion that can choke off our local economies.

Buses are of particular importance to young people, as Members have indicated. More than half of students are frequent bus users and depend on the bus to get to education or training. Buses are used more frequently by young people, with the average 17 to 20-year-old making twice as many trips as people in other age groups.

In Yorkshire and Humber, two thirds of all bus trips by 11 to 15-year-olds involve travelling to or from school. Among 16 to 19-year-olds, 36% of all bus trips are for the purpose of education. A further 20% are for commuting. Young people in Yorkshire and Humber continue to use the bus when they start working. Some 37% of all bus trips by 20 to 25-year-olds are for the overall purpose of commuting. On average, young people in the Yorkshire and Humber areas make more bus trips per year than the average young person in England, which Members may not realise. Sixteen to 19-year-olds in the region make more than 200 bus trips per year, compared with 186 for England as a whole.

I fully recognise that the cost of young people’s travel can cause difficulty for those seeking employment, education or training. That is why, at last November’s UK bus awards, I urged the bus industry to be more innovative about the fare deals and discounts that it offers young people. I want the industry to build on initiatives such as the Confederation of Passenger Transport’s “BUSFORUS” web portal, which I encouraged the confederation to produce and which was launched last autumn. That interactive travel information website is designed with, and aimed precisely at, young people.

The Government appreciates that bus fares for young people vary a great deal across the country. In many cases, that is the result of operators responding to their local market. However, I am pleased to see that travel discounts are available to young people on many bus services in the Yorkshire and Humber areas, as has been mentioned this afternoon.

We have no immediate plans to legislate to set fares for young people or to introduce a statutory young person’s travel concession, but I think that a simpler fare structure would help, and in some areas bus operators could do more to offer discounted fares to young people. People who have decided to leave education and begin work—for example, as apprentices or in training schemes—may find the cost of bus fares a barrier. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) for mentioning the offers that are available for some people coming off JSA into employment, particularly young apprentices. That is a good scheme and we are happy to endorse such schemes. Indeed, I have been promoting them through the local sustainable transport fund, as I imagine the hon. Lady knows.

It is worth pointing out, in response to the complaints of the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) about lack of opportunities for young people, that the number of people in apprenticeships has risen by 88% since 2010. More than 1 million people have started apprenticeships since that time, so apprenticeships are a great success story for the coalition Government, and that point should not be neglected. There are of course issues that need to be dealt with sensibly, but some good things are happening and it is not fair to present a view of things as “woe, woe and thrice woe”, as I fear the hon. Lady tried to do.

Cheaper fares could make buses the mode of choice at an early age and lock in patronage for the future and help to reduce car travel. That is why, at the bus partnership forum in January, I asked the bus industry to consider offering travel discounts to all people aged 18 and under, not just those in education. A fares discount based on age seems far easier to administer than one relying on proof of education. I have encouraged the bus industry to do that because it is in its interest to identify people who want to use the bus and lock them in for future use for the rest of their lives. Potentially, they will be bus users for 50 or 60 years beyond their education time.

Interestingly enough, the legislation that regulates the bus industry, which we inherited in 2010, does not require bus operators to offer any reduced fares to young people. If Government intervened to enforce an age limit for charging an adult fare or legislated to create a national concessionary travel scheme for young people, local authorities would be obliged to reimburse bus operators for any revenue forgone; thus a financial burden would be imposed on local authorities, or, if that were reimbursed to them, there would be a further significant burden on the national taxpayer. In practice, bus fares are set at a commercial level by the operators. In general, despite the fact that there is no requirement to offer anyone below 18 a discount, operators offer free travel to under-fives and a reduced fare to those up to 15 or 16, although that varies considerably around the country.

[Angela Smith]

Does the Minister acknowledge that under the quality contracts introduced in the Local Transport Act 2008 integrated transport authorities could introduce requirements on fares, as well as on routes and frequency?

[Norman Baker]

Indeed they can, and they can get arrangements with bus companies through partnerships, as well. I shall return to quality contracts, because both the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Leeds North East raised the point.

The Department for Transport carried out a survey of travel concession authorities in 2012. Those that responded said that about 40% of operators in their areas offered commercially discounted fares up to the age of 15 and a further 30% offered discounted fares up to the age of 18. Where operators offered concessions, they were mainly discounts of between a third and half the adult single fare. About a fifth of operators cut a quarter off the adult fare. That shows what an unfair and confusing patchwork of fares is available to young people. For the lucky minority, local bus operators will give a 50% discount to those under 18, but young people with access to a local bus service run by one of the 70% of bus operators who offer no discount to 16 to 19-year-olds are in an entirely different situation.

In a deregulated market, bus operators are in competition with each other, and if they were to agree specific fares for young people, it could be deemed anti-competitive. However, in principle, there seems to be nothing to prevent several operators in an area offering discounts to young people as a percentage of the adult commercial fare, whatever that may be. It will of course vary from service to service. That approach would offer young people a deal that is not universally available. There are areas where such an informal arrangement is already in place. In Norfolk, for example, there is a voluntary agreement between several bus operators to offer a standard discount to young people.

In addition to such informal arrangements, a local authority can decide on a discretionary basis to offer concessions to young people in its area. That is solely a matter for the local authority and such an enhancement would have to be funded locally. In Yorkshire and the Humber, all the local authorities have some form of local travel assistance for young people, and I am pleased about that. The integrated transport authority areas of South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, as well as the city of York, issue travel cards that give young people discounted bus fares on the services of several local bus operators. The most rural authorities in the region, where there are fewer bus services, subscribe to the Wheels 2 Work scheme, which allows young people to hire a bicycle or a scooter for access to training and employment. In addition, all jobcentres in the country can provide jobseekers with discretionary support for travel costs, such as support for the cost of a bus fare to attend a job interview.

Therefore, while there is some support for 16 to 19-year-olds with transport costs, it is only ever offered on a commercial or discretionary basis, whereas the national scheme for older people gives free travel at off-peak times on any local bus service in England. The “BUSFORUS” web portal created by the industry—an initiative I welcome—has only further highlighted the disparity; a look at the bus operators’ web portal suggests that they have recognised that. We must do better for young people and give them more consistent and affordable bus fares. I am making that my top bus priority between now and the next election. Discussions are being held with the bus industry and colleagues across the Government to find a solution to the mess of patchwork concessions currently available to young people.

I mentioned the bus forum earlier, and hon. Members may know that it is an arrangement for interested parties to meet once every six months, under my chairmanship, for a round table to discuss bus issues. It may be of interest that, at my instigation, there is now a representative from the UK Youth Parliament, who attends regularly. I have engaged with members of the Youth Parliament and responded to a request to give evidence to their Select Committee hearing, and on behalf of the Government, I have responded formally to the recommendations. I assure hon. Members that we engage with young people, both directly in the Department for Transport, and through the UK Youth Parliament. It is important that young people’s voices should be heard, and I am determined that that will happen in our transport discussions.

As to the use of buses to get to education, all local authorities have a statutory duty to provide home-to-school travel where they consider it necessary to secure a child’s attendance at school. Legislation does not specify what the mode of transport must be, but it is generally a bus. Where transport is considered necessary, it must be provided free of charge. Transport must be free for those pupils attending their nearest suitable school, where that is beyond the statutory walking distances of two miles for pupils below the age of eight and three miles for those aged eight and above. There is also an additional entitlement to free home-to-school transport for children from low-income families. That provides additional support for attendance to those children who are entitled to free school meals or whose parents receive the maximum working tax credit.

Local authorities must make arrangements for children who are unable to walk to school because of special educational need, disability, or mobility problems, or who cannot reasonably be expected to walk because of an unsafe route. However, there are suggestions that some local authorities have reclassified, as safe, routes that were previously designated unsafe, to save money on providing school transport. Parents can appeal to their local authority about such a decision, but that is not always an independent process. Parents can complain to the local government ombudsman about the handling of such an appeal. However, that can be a lengthy process, and in the meantime, children could be walking potentially unsafe routes to school. I would expect local authorities to use the Department for Education’s guidance, which was published last month, to implement fairer and quicker processes for appeals. That, by the way, is an example of good cross-departmental co-operation between me and the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), when he was a Minister. He took the issue seriously and drove forward that agenda in the Department for Education.

Aside from their statutory obligations, local authorities have discretion to provide transport to all other pupils, for which a charge can be made. The increase in participation age will give more choice to young people who continue with education or training beyond the age of 16. They will have a range of options, including working full time alongside their studies or undertaking an apprenticeship.

Young people in work or on a waged apprenticeship will be able to pay for, or contribute towards, their transport costs. The £180 million bursary fund for 16 to 19-year-olds, which is administered by further education establishments, has the flexibility to meet transport costs for those in genuine need of support.

Local government finance continues to be challenging, but it is still disappointing that in a few areas, local councils have responded by taking the axe to local bus services, and I deplore that. I am naturally concerned when I hear that vulnerable people with few other transport choices have lost their only bus service, or that children have reduced public transport access to the school of their choice.

A few councils have taken an almost slash-and-burn approach, while others, I am happy to say, have been more considerate and careful in the decisions they have made. It is worth noting that 80% of services are commercially run and require no subsidy from local councils, so the services that some councils have cut have been from the 20% that are supported services.

Aside from the funding that Yorkshire and Humber receives through a Department for Communities and Local Government finance settlement, it has recently been awarded £20 million for the new bus rapid transit between Sheffield and Rotherham, almost £53 million for 11 local sustainable transport fund projects and £13 million for three better bus area 2012 bids.

In February, as part of the Sheffield city deal, to which the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge referred, we announced Sheffield’s designation as the first new better bus area. Sheffield’s deal will see devolution of bus service operators grant in the area to South Yorkshire PTE together with an immediate grant of £530,000 and further annual top-ups of just under £1.6 million a year. Those grants will better target bus subsidy in Sheffield. The package includes enhanced bus frequencies to major employment and education sites and reduced bus fares across bus operators.

The Department has also initially approved just over £173 million funding for the Leeds trolleybus. The outlook for buses in the Yorkshire and Humber area is rather more positive than Opposition Members might have concluded. The funding that my Department has allocated should see a marked improvement in bus services, which will encourage more young people on to the bus.

Let me deal briefly with the points that have been raised. The hon. Member for Leeds North East moaned about deregulation in 1986 and the impact that it has had on fares. I have to say to him gently, although he is no longer in the Chamber, that his Government did of course have 13 years to reverse that deregulation and failed to do so, so I take his enthusiasm now for reversing with some degree of scepticism.

The hon. Gentleman also talked about local authorities applying for quality contracts and being excluded from the BBA top-up. However, if he reads the guidance he will find that it says:

“Where a local authority can demonstrate that it has genuinely tried to engage in partnership working with local bus operators and this has been met with unreasonable resistance, should the local authority then decide to pursue a quality contract scheme, the Department will—upon request—exceptionally consider whether top-up funding could be provided when decisions are taken about the designation of any further tranche of BBAs.”

It is not true to say, therefore, that the two schemes are mutually exclusive.

[Angela Smith]

If I recall rightly, when the Minister was a member of the Bill Committee for the Local Transport Act 2008, he was much more positive about re-regulation than perhaps he is now. The whole point of quality contracts within the context of the 2008 Act was exactly that integrated transport authorities would be given the freedom to use quality contracts without having to jump over the hurdles that the Government seem to have reintroduced.

[Norman Baker]

I do not accept that. I repeat my earlier point: the hon. Lady’s Government had 13 years to reintroduce whatever it wanted, and did not do so, despite some cajoling from my colleagues and me at the time. However, the fact of the matter is that quality contracts remain on the statute book. The 2008 Act has not been changed in any shape or form. What we have done is to reintroduce further incentives for partnership working, which we think is right. After all, partnership working is the key to success. It is unlikely that we will see more people on buses in a local area if either the local authority or the transport operators are being difficult, so their working together is an essential prerequisite.

It is not true to say, as the hon. Lady claims, that there is a penalty for developing quality contracts. The quality contract regime has not changed at all. What we have is a reward for partnership working, which is an entirely different proposition. It is not true to say, as the hon. Member for Leeds North East has said, that BBAs and quality contracts are mutually exclusive; they are not, and I have just read out the relevant piece of the guidance that demonstrates that to be the case.

The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) talked about cuts in a way that made me feel that Armageddon had arrived. This is the fact of the matter: the overall bus mileage in England fell by just 1% between 2010-11 and 2011-12. I regret any fall in bus mileage, but 1% is not Armageddon. She might also want to know that, in 2011-12, there were 4.7 billion bus journeys in England, which is the highest figure since deregulation in 1986. Therefore, the suggestion that the bus industry is on its knees is perhaps not borne out by the statistics.

The hon. Member for Makerfield complained about the cut in bus service operators grant. I have to say again that, while I regret any cut in support for the bus industry, the fact of the matter is that we ensured that there was a soft landing by giving the bus industry around 18 months’ notice of the 20% cut. At the time—it is on the record—the industry said that it would be able to accommodate that because it had been given sufficient notice. That is in stark contrast to the lack of notice given by the Welsh Assembly Government, run by her party, which gave virtually no notice at all of changes to BSOG for operators in Wales.

The hon. Lady also complained about the profits of bus companies. As we are in a 1980s mood today in many shapes and forms, let me say that I detected a return to 1980s Labour-style theology, where profit is a dirty word and has to be removed from bus companies. That appeared to be the substance of what she was saying.

[Norman Baker]

The point the hon. Lady misses is this: it is in the interests of the bus companies themselves to invest for the future to generate more passenger traffic by having newer buses and a better service. That is indeed what they are doing. For example, the average age of the bus in this country is declining. We are seeing massive new investment in buses, not least of all through the Government’s green bus fund. The way to get more passengers is to provide the service that people want. Everybody in the bus industry understands that and they do it really quite well, as the figures on mileage and the number of bus journeys demonstrate very adequately.

[Angela Smith]

The Minister is being very generous with his time. May I ask him a simple question? In the 1980s, the whole bus system was regulated. London is still regulated. Why is it that what is good enough for London is not right for the rest of the country? Why cannot the rest of the country have the regulated bus service that London enjoys?

[Norman Baker]

The hon. Lady should have asked the Government in 1986 why it took that view and then her own Government why it did not reverse it in the 13 years between 1997 and 2010. However, there are advantages in both systems. Inside London, a plethora of empty buses can be seen, sometimes queuing up one behind another, which is not necessarily an efficient system. The cost of running that system is higher than it should be, so the London benefits are not as clear cut as she would have us believe.

Finally, let me pick up on the careless phrase that the hon. Member for Makerfield used when she talked about the coalition Government making “reckless” cuts to the UK transport system. I have to say to her that we are now seeing more people on the buses—4.7 billion bus journeys, which is higher than at any time since 1986. We have the biggest investment in the rail network since the Victorian era. We have 850 miles of electrification going on in the railway network, compared with 9 miles under her Government in 13 years. There are more people on the trains now than at any time since 1926. People who use public transport can be well pleased with what the Government is doing and I commend it to the House.