Cost of Public Transport

Debate between Daniel Zeichner and Mary Creagh

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

As we debate the cost of travel, thousands of our fellow citizens, in all our constituencies, are in buses, on trains or on roads, in cars or on bikes. The quality of our transport system makes a difference to each of their lives every day, which is why this debate matters. That was brought home to me on the first day of this year, when I was sitting on a train on the way to Ipswich to join Labour campaigners protesting about the ever-rising cost of rail fares. Across the aisle from me, a young woman who worked in a supermarket near Ipswich station was telling her friend, glumly, about the shock she got when she purchased her ticket that morning. It had cost an extra 60p, so it would be an extra three quid a week— £3 out of not much left over. There will have been similar stories on trains and buses up and down the country. For millions of our constituents, every penny counts, and in today’s debate we have not heard enough about the problems on buses, in particular.

Let me start by welcoming the first contribution made in this place by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon). Members have expressed their appreciation before for his revered predecessor, who has quite a successor. Like many colleagues, I enjoyed campaigning in my hon. Friend’s constituency in the autumn and noted that before coming to Parliament he had already made a powerful impact on the national scene through his inspirational work leading the local council. His powerful contribution today pointed out some of the very real contradictions and weaknesses in the Government’s devolution policies.

Despite the lack of time, we heard other excellent contributions today, including those from my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), who outlined the very poor services from which his constituents are suffering at the moment, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden), who talked about the challenges facing her constituents. What they all confirmed was what we already knew, which is that rail and bus fares have shot up since the Conservative party came to power. We all trade figures on these things, but the key one is the comparison between fares and wages: what it really costs people. The truth is that fares have risen three times faster than wages, and that is why it hurts.

There are, however, some who do not feel the pain. The Secretary of State clearly seems impervious to it. Several months ago, he said:

“More transport, better transport...Under our Conservative majority government it's happening.”

Has he really forgotten about the broken election pledges to electrify key routes in the midlands and the north just weeks after the ballot boxes had closed? Or do the Government say that this was just paused? Is it not interesting how Governments introduce new words into the political lexicon. The word “paused” sounds so innocuous but it could ultimately be this Government’s epitaph: a country on pause.

We now have a rail investment programme delayed by years; more than two thirds of councils cutting local bus services; and more than 2,400 local authority-supported bus routes cut or downgraded. We could go on a national tour of bus shelters where there are no buses—perhaps they are paused, too.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Will he comment on the introduction of a fare increase by stealth? People expect rail fares to go up once a year on the first day back in January, but we must not forget that, a year ago in September, this Government introduced an evening peak on Northern Rail, which hit part-time workers and students in particular and caused chaos in railway stations across the north.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Indeed, and my hon. Friend makes a very strong point.

When it comes to buses in particular, we know that the Conservative party always talks about local decisions. The truth is that, by slashing funding to local councils, the Government are passing the buck. It is no good Government Members complaining about problems with their services, as famously the Prime Minister did, when they just troop through the Lobby imposing cuts on local councils. They really must take some responsibility.

We on Labour’s Benches strongly believe in the principle of local communities having a say over their public transport, and we have long been committed to that, but what the Government are offering for bus services is a sham. They are giving localities power with one hand while taking funding away with the other. With a 37% reduction in central Government funding to English local authorities over the course of the previous Parliament, and a further reduction of 24% to come, local authorities have been left with little choice but to cut to the bone.

For Labour, the devolution agenda seems to be little more than a front for public transport funding cuts and fare increases. As Labour Members have observed before, this is not so much a northern powerhouse, as a northern power cut. Whatever the Government spin on being in for a penny, in for a pound, it is clear that the link between fare rises and investment has been broken.

When the Government’s bus service operators grant, which is effectively used to subsidise bus services, was cut by 20% after 2010, the Department for Transport warned that small towns, and particularly rural areas, would be worst affected. It certainly got that right— they were.

What needs to be done? The answer is this: not carry on as we are. It has been fascinating to watch the delicate U-turn being carried out in the DfT as it grasps that the Treasury has finally cottoned on to the fact that we are being taken for a ride by many of the bus operators. It is an irony, is it not, that the Government are now looking to pursue Labour’s policy of bus reregulation? In the past, they were totally opposed to such deregulation. In fact, in the previous Parliament, they directly punished those areas that attempted to pursue bus tendering.

At the election, we promised the biggest shake-up of the bus industry in years. How astonished the operators must have been to find that, after the election, it is now a Conservative Government who are looking to learn from the positive experience in London and apply it across the country. Some of us are just a bit sceptical about this conversion, but we eagerly await the forthcoming bus legislation, and hope to see within it genuine power for local people and local authorities to have real leverage over their local services. The case for reform is incontrovertible and urgent because the status quo just is not working. Private bus operators have abandoned bus routes and services that they found to be commercially unprofitable, leaving the most vulnerable in our society stranded.

We want to give communities genuine power to plan fares and timetables, and to reflect local needs. Although some bus operators have strongly resisted moves towards greater co-ordination, these powers are already in use in London and they are the norm in Europe. If it is good enough for London then it is good enough for the north-east, Greater Manchester, Sheffield, Cornwall, and any other area that wants them. The alternative of continuing to watch bus services uncontrollably deteriorate is no alternative at all. At the election, the Prime Minister made many promises that have not stood up to scrutiny. He promised older people that the free bus pass, introduced by Labour, would be maintained, but, as so often with this Prime Minister, it is important to read the small print. He kept the bus pass, but said nothing about keeping the bus. The number of concessionary passes has gone up, but the number of concessionary bus journeys has gone down. How useful is a bus pass without a bus? We need a better way.