George Howarth
Main Page: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)Department Debates - View all George Howarth's debates with the Department for Transport
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andrew Stephenson
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for continuing to champion transport improvements in his constituency. My Department is currently considering an outline business case to progress the Croydon bottleneck scheme through our investment pipeline.
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)
The Government’s view is that the commissioning and provision of bus services should be kept separate, particularly as new partnership and franchising powers in the Bus Services Act 2017 are likely to lead to more local authority control and better influence of local bus services.
Sir George Howarth [V]
I thank the Minister for his response, but I do not think it amounted to an answer to my question, so let me try again. If publicly owned bus services are right for London, why are they not right for the Liverpool city region?
Chris Heaton-Harris
To be fair, the right hon. Gentleman’s question was, “What plans he has to enable public transport authorities to operate their own bus services,” and I gave the appropriate answer. However, as he will know, I am quite keen, as a localist, to try to do some of this, but the Government are committed to implementing the UK’s first ever long-term bus strategy, which will be accompanied by long-term funding. That strategy will focus on passenger needs and set out how the Government will work with local authorities and the private sector.