Countess of Mar
Main Page: Countess of Mar (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)Department Debates - View all Countess of Mar's debates with the Department for Transport
(11 years ago)
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Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am a little disappointed. I thought that the noble Lord would have given me a much better run for my money. I accept that there has to be a 20% cut in the bus service operators grant. It is painful. My honourable friend Mr Norman Baker would have liked not to have done it—I am sure he would have fought hard to avoid it—but the best way of reducing the budget is to make small cuts everywhere, and we have had to make a small cut in the bus service operators grant. However, the effect on the bus service mileage has not been as much as one might expect.
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, talking of small cuts, our local village has a rather intermittent bus service, but they use quite large buses on the route. The buses are mainly empty. Would it be possible to use minibuses, which are cheaper to maintain, do not take up so much of the road and do not wreck the roads quite so much, instead of expensive single-decker buses?
Earl Attlee
The noble Countess makes a good point, but it is of course up to the operator to select the most suitable bus for its operations. It is a purely operational matter.