Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords]

Euan Stainbank Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 10th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Ashley Fox]

My constituents want the performance, accessibility and quality of bus services to be improved, and that is why I support new clause 34. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) for re-tabling it. When the Secretary of State spoke to the Bill on Second Reading, she said that improving bus services underpins the Government’s plan for change. If that is the case, it strikes me as odd that the Government would strip out a new clause made in the other place that specifically stated that that was the purpose of the Bill.

I also support new clause 29, which calls for a review of the provision of bus services to villages in England. There are many villages in my constituency with poor or non-existent bus routes, with particular problems in Spaxton, Enmore, Combwich, Fiddington and Stockland Bristol. These villages find themselves just off the main routes, with the residents left all but stranded, unable even to get to and from Bridgwater unless they have a car.

Even in the villages that do have services, far too often the bus service stops in the early evening. For example, the last No. 16 bus to Langport, which serves Westonzoyland, Middlezoy and Othery, leaves Bridgwater at 5.15 pm. That means not only that the services fail to cater for those who want to travel for leisure, but that many constituents are unable to use buses for commuting because they cannot get home after work.

The review should also consider integration between different modes of transport, which is an important issue for those living in rural areas who need to travel further afield. There has been no usable bus stop at Bridgwater railway station for several years because of road layout problems. It is a relatively small fix, but despite running Somerset council for the last three years, the Lib Dem administration seems unable to fix the problem. We must ensure that the Bill obliges local authorities to act in circumstances such as these, and I hope the review will assist in that.

Another problem my constituents would wish the review to consider is seasonal timetables. I am fortunate to represent a beautiful part of Somerset that attracts large numbers of visitors to both the coast and the Quantock hills. During the summer, demand for buses is understandably higher. What the bus operators seem to forget, however, is that the local resident population relies on bus services continuing all year round. Seasonal buses help those in the north of my constituency commuting to work or college in Weston-super-Mare. The reduced frequency of the No. 20 bus service and the lack of a Sunday service in the winter months mean that fewer people can rely on it. I hope that the Government accept the need for this review and that its results better inform policy when the new franchising is rolled out.

I support amendment 23, which calls for an assessment of the ending of the £2 bus cap. The £2 cap was a great achievement of the last Conservative Government, and I was disappointed when the Labour Government decided to scrap it. They increased the amount that all our constituents have to pay by 50% and then proclaimed it a triumph. It sounds like something from Soviet propaganda. We are supposed to welcome this glorious new £3 bus fare as some sort of victory of the proletariat over the forces of capitalism, conveniently forgetting what preceded it. I want to see the £2 cap reinstated, and I hope that the assessment will be the first step toward that.

I want to see bus services improved for my constituents. I believe that amendment 23 and new clauses 29 and 34 would improve the Bill, and I urge the Minister to accept them.

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and declare an interest as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for British buses.

Within my constituency and the neighbouring constituency of the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) are two sites of the UK’s largest bus manufacturer, Alexander Dennis, which employs around 400 people in Falkirk, with thousands more jobs dependent on the buses created at Falkirk. Manufacturers will welcome new clause 38 and the certainty that it gives by consolidating the provisions of the Bill in Scotland.

Bus manufacturing in Britain has been in difficulty in the past year, partly due to the failure of the previous Government to deliver on their pledge of 4,000 British-built, zero emission buses by 2024. In the end, they supported just over half that number, with just under half being bought from abroad. The Tories funded too few buses and got far too many of them from elsewhere in the world.

Then there was a second policy failure, this time by the Scottish Government’s recent ScotZEB 2 programme, which saw less than one fifth of its buses come from Scotland’s only bus manufacturer and more than three times more come from China. Standing up for Scotland—aye right! Both the Conservatives and the Scottish National party did not take the protection of the domestic bus manufacturing sector seriously, and their failure has jeopardised hundreds of jobs in my constituency and potentially thousands in the supply chain across the country.

All this is to say that the future of a domestic industry that we will need if we want to see a green, clean, safe and effective bus network is contingent on legislation that supports the effective domestic procurement of buses and enables local authorities to make decisions that are right for their area and put the passenger first. The Bill does an excellent job of delivering on those priorities, with a streamlined and more flexible franchising process, stronger powers for grant funding from local authorities, and local authorities able to order in bulk, as in the case of the Bee Network in Manchester.

The Bee Network was bolstered by 254 buses ordered from and built in Falkirk. I will never miss an opportunity to remind the House that the Bee Network’s buses were reliant on the skills and craftmanship of bus manufacturing workers in Falkirk, more than they were reliant on any other place. That is thanks in no small part to the instincts and political foresight of the Mayor of Manchester to work in the national interest—instincts that will be empowered across the country by the provisions in the Bill. If only we had the same foresight from the Scottish Government, who must now deliver on their commitment to a prospective rescue deal for Alexander Dennis workers following the excellent engagement and flexibility of our Transport, Cabinet Office and Scotland Office colleagues.

It is welcome that, following consultation, the ban on registering non-zero emission buses for local services will start no earlier than 2030, as moving too fast on the necessary transition to zero emission vehicles would create a degree of risk for domestic manufacturers in the current market. This year, the industry reported that 35% of ZEV buses purchased in the country by local authorities and operators will come from China, compared with 10% only two years ago. That is an alarming share to have been taken out of our domestic manufacture. We must address that before we throw ourselves head-first or too fast into building an exclusively clean, green and foreign fleet across the country.

While I am sympathetic to the well-intentioned environmentalist calls in amendments 62 and 63 from the Green party to accelerate the non-zero emission buses ban, that approach would risk creating a situation in which authorities and operators would likely be compelled to buy from abroad, further undermining the competitiveness of our domestic industry, on which my community relies. I would more than welcome Green Members’ engagement with the all-party group to discuss how the House can align British industry with the laudable intention of those amendments. The UK timeline will align with the transition in Scotland, as I mentioned, as is addressed in the Secretary of State’s new clause 38 and amendments 46 to 48.

Accelerating our ambition beyond what domestic capacity allows would create a risk that local authorities and operators would be compelled in the long term to buy an unsustainably high proportion of their fleet from abroad, from manufacturers who have received decades of state subsidy elsewhere. I repeat the ask of my all-party parliamentary group for Ministers to use the work of the bus manufacturing expert panel to map out a fully funded and coherent pipeline of zero emission bus orders that can be met by our world-leading domestic manufacturers, and provide the certainty that the sector—especially workers in Falkirk this week—needs before the ban comes in in 2030.

As I mentioned, Falkirk has already seen the benefit of local authority-controlled bus networks, with Labour-controlled Liverpool and Manchester combined authorities making clear strategic commitments to partner with UK manufacturers and ordering significant numbers of buses from Alexander Dennis. Considered strategic and small-p political local leadership can often make more effective policy decisions than the private sector or—I acknowledge—lazy franchisers, who all too often simply look to the cheapest price rather than considering our national, industrial and economic interests.

More authorities operating like that, in tandem with the upcoming changes to the local authority procurement framework, could see us not just protect jobs in Falkirk in the short term but materially enable an expansion of the industry. That is essential to delivering the socially positive outcomes clearly articulated by hon. Members in new clause 45 and amendments 7 and 16, to mention just a few. We cannot forget the social benefit of an industry that provides an additional 3.25 jobs per job hired in manufacturing. The benefits are seen in quieter and smoother journeys, but also in jobs created and protected, taxes paid and communities strengthened.

The Bill seems on the whole to be about building up the powers of our local authorities, but it also gives us an opportunity to build up the bus manufacturing industry while we set our minds to the task of improving local transport. The Bill on the whole is better for passengers, better for local authorities, and hopefully better for British workers. With the Bill we can deliver a transport system that is clean, affordable and reliable and a bus manufacturing industry that thrives for decades to come. First stop, Falkirk.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

With an immediate five-minute time limit, I call Tom Gordon.