Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Bradshaw

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw]

My Lords, perhaps I may add a point to what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said. Any move towards smart ticketing or reduced fares for young people is revenue-generative. It is not a dead-weight cost. In fact, some bus operators are voluntarily introducing reduced fares for young people and they are finding that they can be almost self-financing. Young people have a very high propensity to travel. They will travel at the weekends and in the evening, provided that the cost does not build up.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the amendments and for explaining their intent so clearly. As she said, Amendments 8, 17B and 54A would all help add clarity and certainty to the standards of provision to be expected from advanced quality partnership and franchise schemes and are therefore to be welcomed. The noble Baroness spoke about there being too many “may”s in one clause. They do rather render the clause ineffective, so we support the proposed changes.

Amendment 15 raises important issues about the elements of a quality bus service that we should expect following the introduction of the Bill, including controlling emissions levels and making travel easier through advanced ticketing schemes. Until I sat here today, I did not know about my noble friend Lord Whitty’s great victory. I congratulate him; it is nice to have a legacy like that. In all the doom and gloom around us, at least he can lay claim to something that we have all appreciated. As we have heard from a number of noble Lords, such travel passes transform the way people use bus services and it is the way that we want to go.

We will explore these issues in more detail in later amendments, but we nevertheless support the amendments in this group. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in response. We have got into a pattern of response from the Minister that is slightly disappointing. The first line of defence is, “Don’t be too ambitious, because, if you are, you’ll put the bus operators off and they will aim low if you expect too much of them”. The second is, “Don’t worry, we’re going to put in statutory guidance”. If those are the two responses we hear as we progress through the Bill, we will not get very far, because many of our amendments are about improving quality and people’s expectations. I hope the Minister will meet us half way a little more often on some of these issues than has been the case so far.

We have great sympathy also for the case made by the noble Baroness for Amendment 13A. We all want to encourage more young people to be regular bus users and to make it affordable for them. We would like to take time to consider the cost implications—she acknowledged that there were issues in that regard, particularly for local authorities. If the measure is not fully costed for local authorities, what would be the knock-on effect? However, it is an important debate that we need to follow through. I was interested to hear from the Minister that a review of the concessionary fare scheme is taking place. Perhaps he could clarify whether young people’s fares are included in it. I am not sure what the scope of the review is, but it is one place where we could have that wider and highly relevant debate.