Zero-emission Buses

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I thank the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) for securing this important debate. It was a pleasure to meet him and the bus manufacturers he recently invited to the House to discuss in more detail this hugely important issue for jobs and the economy in Great Britain.

I want first to touch on the positive impacts of the ZEBRA funding that has come our way in Nottinghamshire, particularly in Mansfield. In March, we brought forward a £13 million investment in 23 new electric buses that will serve the people of Mansfield. We previously had two, which were made by Alexander Dennis—we continue to prioritise that UK manufacturer. We delivered the Berry Hill Flyer, an all-electric service, a couple of years ago, and 23 further buses on the 1, 6, 7 and 16 services will be delivered over the next 18 to 24 months, replacing the older diesel buses, with £2.8 million of that £13 million investment coming from the ZEBRA 2 scheme and from the Department for Transport. We are grateful for the opportunity to deliver a better public service and a clean and greener transition in our public transport network.

There are still challenges around the infrastructure. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) has touched on electric charging infrastructure in rural areas, an issue that I have recently spoken at great length about to bus companies in our part of the world. We are also developing significant hydrogen fuel technology in the east midlands through our hydrogen partnership, working with partners such as Toyota and the Trentbarton bus company on opportunities to deliver. Although there are challenges around the use of hydrogen in private vehicles, for bus companies it is a massive opportunity that we need to focus on and develop.

I am really proud to have worked in recent years on the new East Midlands Combined Authority, which will help to take that process forward and develop technology and skills in the industry. I am also grateful for the fourfold increase in transport funding locally that has been devolved down to our part of the world to help us to make a massive impact, deliver a better and more joined-up bus service, fill some of those gaps and support the transition to a cleaner service.

In addition to that investment and what it means for buses on the road, we are adding value locally through our partnership with Nottinghamshire County Council and Stagecoach, which is working with West Notts College in my constituency to support learners. Through the manufacturing scheme, learners are doing work experience with Stagecoach: they are working in engineering and manufacturing, working on vehicles, going out and learning the trade on the job, and getting relationships with employers and access to future job opportunities. It is fantastic that we are not only building buses in the UK, but supporting young people in my constituency to repair them, maintain them and work on them.

In any transport debate, it would be remiss of me not to mention that buses drive on roads, so it is also important that we continue to get investment in our roads around Nottinghamshire and around the country. We can shift as many people on to public transport as we like, but we still need that investment in our road network. There are huge challenges for us locally, after massive flooding and the wettest winter on record in Nottinghamshire.

We have had significant extra investment from Government, which is a step forward; it would certainly be much worse without that. We need to work with the new combined authority and the new Mayor to bring funding forward. A huge amount of funding is scheduled for 2025 onwards, which is a great opportunity for us, but we need it now. I urge the Minister to consider that point, as well as helping me to lobby our regional Mayor, who will have that funding, to bring it forward. I was very disappointed not to be elected to the role, as the House might imagine; I certainly had significant plans to bring that funding forward early and get the infrastructure investment delivered. I now need to lobby our Labour Mayor to deliver that, and I trust that Government will support me and colleagues in the region to do that.

Like the hon. Member for North Antrim, I want to see our new buses built in the UK. It is hugely important to jobs, skills and to young people looking to get into that sector, as I have described. We are massively short of skills, particularly in electric and hydrogen vehicles—just go down to any garage and try to get your car sorted! The other day, I went to a garage near where I live. When I said it was a hybrid, they said, “You can’t come here, mate, because we don’t know what we’re doing when it comes to hybrid vehicles.” We are massively short of those skills, so we need to develop them in our region, as well as working with colleges in the way that I have described.

I understand that procurement decisions are made locally by the bus companies—Stagecoach, in our case—working with us in partnership as a transport authority, and in the future with our regional combined authority as the new transport authority, but I want to know from the Minister whether the Government are doing everything in their power to ensure that we are taking full advantage of procurement rules and processes.

The hon. Member for North Antrim mentioned community and social value in the tendering process. It is pretty difficult to add value to a local community in the UK if we are building stuff in China. We need to ensure that we get added social and economic benefit here through fair competition, while making sure that the fair competition values the things that we value for our communities—the skills, investment, and jobs that are so important. Can the Minister reassure me that he and his Department will take all those steps to ensure that happens? What conversations has the Minister had with those local authorities that are bidding and seeking to deliver the investment to ensure that that is clear to them?

The Department for Transport might want to consider where the buses will be made when it decides where funding is given. The procurement process is one thing, but the Department will decide who gets access and who is granted the funding. That is another opportunity for the Government to assess and prioritise the question of where the buses will be manufactured. Although the procurement decisions are local, there are several ways and mechanisms by which the Department and its Ministers can ensure that we are getting the best value and that the majority of these buses can be built in the UK in future. Although there are no bus manufacturers in my constituency, there are certainly countless young people looking to benefit from the skills and career opportunities that working in automotive engineering and manufacturing can bring. Having high-quality, lower-emission vehicles on our roads will certainly bring huge benefits to my constituents.

As we look to push people towards using public transport and to deliver the new funding that I have worked to secure over recent years, a better and more joined-up public transport network will be a huge opportunity for us. I hope that the Minister can offer some reassurances about the Government’s commitment to British manufacturing. I certainly look forward to working with him and with our new regional combined authority, with its transport funding, to deliver a better network for my residents.