Transport: North-east

Debate between Bridget Phillipson and Iain Wright

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered transport in the North East.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I am grateful for the opportunity to hold this debate on such an important issue for many of my constituents. This is by no means the first time that I have spoken in this House about transport in the north-east, and I start by reiterating what I said on those occasions about the region’s huge economic potential. Nissan’s recent decision to build two new models at its Sunderland plant was a resounding vote of confidence in the workforce and in the north-east economy and a demonstration of what can be achieved when Government and business work together to maximise what the region has to offer.

As the only English region consistently to maintain a balance of trade surplus over the past decade, the north-east is clearly doing something right in developing export opportunities by land, air and sea. One of the most effective ways that Government can help to support those efforts and drive economic growth is through greater investment in transport infrastructure. After all, a 2014 research paper commissioned by the Department for Transport described transport as an

“essential input to income generation”

that has

“positive impacts on a wide range of economic variables including city size and employment.”

Creating better transport connections between the north’s economic centres is also meant to be one of the central planks of the Government’s so-called northern powerhouse scheme. Despite the soaring rhetoric of the northern powerhouse initiative, the level of public spending allocated to the north-east remains very low compared with almost every other region in the country. Government figures show that expenditure has declined by almost 20% over the decade, with the result that the north-east accounted for only 2.8% of overall UK spend on transport last year.

Although other northern regions have also suffered from a decline in central funding in recent years, the amount spent on transport in the north-east last year was by far the lowest of the English regions, and second only to Northern Ireland across the UK. The difference between the north-east and London is especially stark. At £300 a head of population, expenditure in the north-east is far below the London spend of £1,900 a head. Some £573 million was spent across the whole north-east on transport last year, but £27 billion to £32 billion has been earmarked for Crossrail 2 alone.

Given the substantial levels of public investment in transport in the capital, it is hardly a surprise that one in four Londoners do not own a car. Few realise that the north-east has the second lowest rate of car ownership in the country after London, with one in three people entirely reliant on public transport to get around.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. I know she is a passionate champion of bus services. Does she realise that bus passenger numbers have fallen by 57.7% in the north-east since deregulation in the 1980s—the highest of any region? Does she think that is a sign of success, or is it actually a recognition of the failure to have a co-ordinated transport policy?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I feel that deregulation has been an unmitigated disaster for regions such as the north-east, where we have had a knock-on effect on fares, falling bus patronage and local communities often entirely cut off from bus services. I know that my hon. Friend faces similar problems in his community in Hartlepool to those I face in mine.

On that point, the people in my constituency are entirely dependent on bus services. There is no other option. It is therefore imperative that the comparatively small amount of money allocated to the north-east for transport is spent on ensuring that local public transport services meet the needs of local people and businesses. Unfortunately, expenditure on local public transport in the north-east has dropped by more than 45% over the last five years, which is by far the biggest decrease in spending on any mode of transport in the region.

I want to take the opportunity to again raise with the Minister my long-standing concerns about the state of north-east local bus services. Over the past six years, thousands of local people have contacted me to express their deep dissatisfaction about the cost of fares and the level of service being provided by private bus companies. That is why I vocally supported efforts by Nexus and the North East combined authority to use existing legislation to re-regulate local bus services, through the introduction of a London-style quality contract scheme in Tyne and Wear. It would have integrated fares and routes and ensured that taxpayer subsidies were used to improve services instead of to increase operating profits. I was therefore sorely disappointed with the quality contract scheme board decision a year ago to reject the proposals, even though it acknowledged that the scheme would offer local people a transport system unrivalled outside London. I still find it incredible that the board believed operators should be compensated for the future loss of potential profits. The people of the north-east should not have to compensate bus operators for what is taken for granted in London.

One year on, north-east passengers are no closer to getting the bus service they deserve. Nexus was clear during the QCS process that if the scheme was not implemented, bus cuts were inevitable, fares would increase and ridership would go down. That scenario is playing out. Annual bus statistics show that bus patronage has decreased by 2.7% again in Tyne and Wear and given the frequency with which operators chop and change services and raise fares, that is hardly a surprise. While north-east bus passengers continue to suffer from the absence of a fully integrated network, bus operators in the region continue to make large profits. In fact, in some cases the profits made by commercial bus operators are even being used to prop up loss-making rail franchises, as David Brown, chief executive officer of the Go-Ahead Group recently admitted. We cannot go on like this.

The QCS board decision last November may have blocked efforts to introduce franchising schemes under existing legislation, but there was much hope that the Bus Services Bill would give us the power to implement the change we so desperately need. Unfortunately, despite sensible amendments to the Bill in the House of Lords on bus franchising schemes, the Government seem determined to ensure those powers will only be available automatically to mayoral combined authorities. It seems as if the region will once again be denied the opportunity to improve services for passengers. The current deregulated system has not only failed to prevent a decline in bus patronage—it has exacerbated it. I ask the Minister to think carefully on the amendments and to give the north-east the powers it needs to implement the urgent, radical change needed to arrest and reverse that decline.

Buses are of course not the only means by which people travel across the north-east, although they are the only mode of public transport for many of my constituents, which is one of the main reasons for the poor connectivity between semi-urban and rural constituencies such as mine and the urban centres they surround. If the Government really want to create better transport links between economic centres in the north, they must provide Nexus with the long-term funding necessary for essential infrastructure works to refresh and expand the metro. With 60 stations, around 40 million passenger trips per year and trains running up to 19 hours a day, the metro has been serving the needs of north-east residents for more than 40 years.