Bus Services Bill [Lords]

Debate between Graham Stringer and John Pugh

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I support the amendment and want to reflect the huge consensus in Committee on this issue. We divided on a number of matters, but it was a relaxed Committee and the Minister gave reasoned answers. The Bill represents a first step towards a change in attitude to buses. It was brought about following negotiations between the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and various metropolitan areas. A deal was reached whereby elected mayors could re-regulate bus services. I hope that this is just the first step.

I ask the Minister to reflect on this issue in a developing situation. The new Prime Minister has brought in an industrial strategy, and there is a strategy for the railways, as has been mentioned, as well as a strategy for aviation. It is rightly difficult to think of areas where large amounts of public money are spent where it is not the responsibility and the right of the Government and elected representatives to define the objectives that that public money should provide.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned a connection between directly elected mayors and bus deregulation. Does he see any logical or sensible connection between the two? Is there any reason why the two should go hand in hand?

[Graham Stringer]

It was a pragmatic decision taken by the then Chancellor and the combined authorities in metropolitan areas. There is obviously no rational basis for deciding to have a different bus system in Greater Manchester from that in Southampton, for example. What would be the rationale for that? Clearly, there is none.

The point I was making is that, having taken the first step—not necessarily consistently, but in a sensible way in the metropolitan areas—it is right to look for a strategy that would help us to get rid of a relic of ideological Thatcherism from the early 1980s, which was seen in the Transport Act 1985 that deregulated buses. What the absence of strategy says is that we do not care how many millions of pounds have gone into the bus industry since 1986 when the 1985 Act came into force. I do not know, but I would have thought that over 31 years we are talking about a large chunk out of £100 billion being spent without any policy direction at all over that spending.

What we have been left with is a rather sterile debate. On the one side it is said that buses are declining and they would have declined in any case over this period. On the other side, there are those who think that that decline was not necessary. They say that without on-road competition, which has failed, with better competition at the tender stage and with a clearer decision on what bus services were needed and what fares should be charged, we would not have lost so many bus routes and bus passengers as we have. Not having a strategy over the last 31 years is saying that it does not matter that two thirds of bus passengers have disappeared in Greater Manchester and that bus fares have gone up considerably more than the rate of inflation. But these things do matter.

As both the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) have said, the vast majority of the people we represent, particularly the poorer people who do not have access to a car, rely on buses to get to work, to get to a hospital and to see relatives at weekends, but after deregulation, many of those bus routes no longer existed. How could we not have a strategy in view of that? How could we abandon those people?

Bus Services Bill [Lords]

Debate between Graham Stringer and John Pugh

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

It is worth going through a little history to put the Bill into perspective. Although I support this Bill, there is one real sense in which I, as Labour MP, think it is not necessary. The fact is that since the Transport Act 1985 was implemented in 1986, virtually every Labour Member has seen it as a catastrophic failure for people who use buses. It saddens me that a Labour Government did not bring forward a better Act than the Bill before us now. However, the Government have brought this Bill before us, and it is worth supporting.

Given what the Secretary of State said about reversing the Lords amendments, it is worth remembering why we have this Bill at all. It came about because the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), had discussions with the chief executive of Manchester City Council, Sir Howard Bernstein, who retires this month and to whom we should all pay tribute for progressing this item, which will undoubtedly improve buses. The then Chancellor recognised what many of us had been saying for some time—that this country would be much better off economically if we made our major cities work, rather than depriving them of resources and of allowing them to run their transport system in favour of the economy and people who live in the area. Sir Howard Bernstein and Sir Richard Leese persuaded the then Chancellor, and we now have this Bill before us.

It was always an ideological position of the Conservative party, as we heard from the right hon. Member for Chipping Norton, that it wanted a complete free-market approach to buses. However, the Government conceded that they would allow reregulation if combined local authorities agreed to have an elected mayor. That negotiation was entered into and agreed. One has to bear that in mind when the Government say that they will reverse the Lords amendments. I agree with that in principle, but I would not like to lose the Bill, given that a negotiation happened and an agreement was put in place between local authorities and the Government that will improve life for many people I represent and for many in mayoral combined authority areas.

I will go through two major issues. First, the right hon. Member for Chipping Norton gave the argument for the exceptionalism of London or, to put it another way, “It’s okay for us in London. You lot can get on with it.” [Hon. Members: “ Chipping Barnet.”] I am sorry; if the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers) were in her place, I would apologise to her. She put forward three arguments as to why London should have something that the rest of us cannot. One was that it would bring uncertainty to the bus companies. Well, there would probably be a bit of uncertainty for the bus companies, as they will have to compete in a different way to run services, but my prime interest and concern is for the passengers who, for the past 31 years under the deregulation Act, have only had six weeks’ notice—in practice, sometimes less—of bus services being withdrawn. Part of the Bill takes some of that uncertainty away from passengers, so that argument does not stand up, particularly if our priority is the passengers.

To be completely straightforward, I did not understand the right hon. Lady’s second point, which was about the renationalisation of the buses. The Bill is not about renationalising the buses. It is primarily about reregulation in metropolitan areas. Although I accept the deal, and allowing local authorities to set up municipal bus companies was not part of that deal, I do not think it would do any harm for local authorities that saw the need for it to have the right to set up municipal bus companies, particularly if the private sector moves out, as it has threatened to do on a number of occasions if the Bill goes through.

The right hon. Lady’s third point was about the finance that goes into London from the congestion charge. The really important thing is that there was a period between 1986 and 2000, when Ken Livingstone won the London mayoralty, when there was effectively no subsidy. There was certainly no congestion charge for there to have been subsidy. There was no loss of bus passengers in Greater London over that period, whereas the number of bus passengers plummeted in the west midlands, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear, and Bristol. The figures fell by two thirds in South Yorkshire and by half in Manchester, but without the subsidy from the congestion charge, the passenger figures in London remained the same. The arguments of the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet against this Bill do not stack up.

It is worth taking a deeper look at how the deregulation has worked, why it does not work and the flaw in the arguments in support of it, for those who still support deregulation. When the legislation was introduced—incidentally, I have sadly been around long enough to have campaigned against the introduction of the 1985 Act—the argument was that competition would improve the bus services because bus services were run by municipal authorities that had monopolies and were not providing the best possible service. I do not believe, as the Opposition have been accused of believing, that that was a completely utopian, golden age. It was not; there were flaws. Many bus routes in South Yorkshire, which my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) talked about, and in Greater Manchester and Merseyside, were still running on the schedules and timetables of the old tram system. They did not respond quickly enough to the changes in population after slum clearance. There were faults, but there were night services, people could get across the conurbations to see their parents on Saturdays and Sundays because there were bus services, and people could get to work early in the morning or home late at night after shifts. All that has disappeared. So, no, it was not a golden age, but it was a much better service than is being provided by the private sector.

It is important to understand why the competition that was supposed to deliver has not worked, and it has not worked for two reasons. Where there was severe competition, as there was in south Manchester, Preston, Edinburgh and other places, bus companies went head to head and really had a go at trying to run the other bus company off the road. Those places got not a better service, but terrible congestion. City centres were blocked up. The system did not work where there was severe competition, but that was very rare. The Competition Commission did a study in 2011, finding that there was virtually no on-the-road competition. Supplementary evidence shows that there was very little competition because companies in the London system—as much as the bus companies’ accounts can be understood—were getting a much lower rate of return on their capital than companies elsewhere, although it still enabled them to invest in new buses.

[John Pugh]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is also a myth about deregulation meaning the introduction of the private sector? There were many splendid private sector operators in Liverpool prior to deregulation, such as Crosville and Ribble, which existed alongside the municipal sector.

[Graham Stringer]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right about Merseyside. In Manchester, Mayne Coaches ran a service in the private sector, but it was regulated; it could not just—as happens under the deregulated system—decide to run a bus service one day and take it off six weeks later, or vice versa. So the issue is not privatisation but the lack of regulation.

The point I was getting to is that there is supplementary evidence that competition did not work. The rate of return in London was much lower, and FirstGroup moved out of the London market because it could make a much higher return in South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.

Greener Road Transport Fuels

Debate between Graham Stringer and John Pugh

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[John Pugh]

I think I might reserve the phrase “crime against humanity” for other things, but I recognise the impact. A number of third world charities believe that the net effect will further impoverish the third world and the areas that most need our help.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman rather skated over the issue of hydrogen-fuelled cars. I drove in such a car 10 years ago in Detroit. The technology is perfectly good. Does he agree that hydrogen suffers from exactly the same problem as biofuels, which is the source material, in that we must have land to grow source material from which to extract hydrogen?

[John Pugh]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands hydrogen propulsion a lot better than I do; I hope he makes a contribution. I am betraying my ignorance here. I am just providing a preamble to what I hope will be a successful plea in favour of greater and more effective use of LPG. I do not in any way counter or dismiss the value of what the hon. Gentleman said.

Railway Expansion

Debate between Graham Stringer and John Pugh

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting case and might be getting to the point that I want to make. Is the real reason why there has been little investment in new lines over the past 30 years or so because of the methodology used for new investment? A terrific amount of investment is going into the railways at the moment, but nearly all of it is for the south-east, because the criteria used are about capacity and overcrowding, not about economic development, which is the point he was making. Does he agree that a rebalancing of the criteria of economic development and of overcrowding is needed because otherwise all the money will go to the south-east?

[John Pugh]

I heartily endorse that sentiment, as well as the hon. Gentleman’s point about methodology. He makes a very good case. However, the Government are in favour of rebalancing the economy, and they accept that one of the ways of doing so is through infrastructure capital projects, particularly on something such as rail. It is sad that really big rail schemes are being progressed in the south yet very little is happening up north, apart from such necessary developments as the Manchester hub.

It is fair presumption that if we want to move people around the country, laying down metal track and then shifting people around in large, uncomfortable iron boxes need not automatically be seen as the best approach. However, if we took that presumption to its logical conclusion, it would debar any tram schemes, although in places such as Manchester they have been extraordinarily successful. Even if that presumption is in place, it has to be tested, although that rarely happens. It is contested, however, when we come to the really large schemes such as Crossrail, high-speed rail and the Thames Gateway, on which the Government seem to be prepared to proceed—most hon. Members would support that.

To be fair, the Government have looked at the area I am speaking about: restoring curves. During the passage of railways legislation under the previous Government, Tony McNulty, the then Transport Minister, let it slip that the Department for Transport was looking closely at some of the schemes to see if they had any value. The Government were taking the folders out of the cupboard, dusting them down and seeing what worked and what did not. However, since that inadvertent confession of what the Government were up to, none of the research has seen the light of day, as far as I know. There is a presumption against such development, and that presumption is not argued but insidious. It was actually contested just before the general election by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), who is now Under-Secretary of State for Transport. He expressed his support for a range of smaller schemes, some of which I have mentioned already.

Being completely fair, there is evidence that rail travel is more expensive than it looks, given that it has a hidden public subsidy, as the Minister will no doubt say at some point. However, there is rather less evidence than there used to be that empty carriages are being carried around unnecessarily. I remember the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), during his short spell as Secretary of State for Transport, calming things down by suggesting that he was going to contract the network further because parts of it were full of carriages of fresh air. No one is saying that any more. However, a man would never lose money by betting against the Department for Transport’s dismal projections on rail use. I recently looked at some statistics that demonstrated that even branch lines, which are one of the archaic aspects of our structure, are showing increased use.

There is a case that needs to be answered. Many hon. Members during their time in Parliament make cases for specific schemes, but what happens when we question the institutional inertia on the topic and when rational people bring forward considerations? Whether or not it is because of the methodology used, which the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) mentioned, hurdles get put in place.

In the past, the Department for Transport has asked me for a business case. Sensibly, I have asked what needs to go into a business case, but the Department is completely incapable of telling me, so I do not know what a good business case should look like. There simply has never been a good business case for a project such as I am suggesting that has been accepted by the Department. Demand studies have been carried out, but they are not so much optimised as—if this is a word—pessimised. People always assume the worst-case scenario, and that if the track is laid and the trains are built, no one will use them. Prices, however, are always maximised, without any indication of how competitive they are by international standards. I point out again that if we had adopted the same approach for trams that we have for small-scale railway infrastructure development, we would never have got a tram scheme off the ground.

If the Department for Transport puts in place the demand and the business case hurdles yet enthusiasm is still not dimmed, it is normally then suggested that the obvious way to promote the scheme would be under some local funding solution. However, there is always an underestimate of what a hard ask that is. Promoters of any substantial scheme would certainly have to talk to local councils to get them lined up, as well as dealing with passenger transport authorities and regional development authorities, when there were such organisations. All such organisations, by and large, have erratic, on-off funding streams. Their strategies have been revised over recent years and then changed again. The demands made of them have also changed, and even the labels of the organisations have changed, given that PTAs became integrated transport authorities. They are subject to changing mandates and central directives, some of which come from the Department for Transport. The promoters are then expected to pull all those organisations together and to work with national bodies such as Network Rail, which are also subject to prescriptions from the Government and the Office of Rail Regulation. Granted, Network Rail is more approachable than the disaster that was Railtrack, but it is still hard to deal with it. Had doing so been easier, we would have got to the yes-or-no stage for a scheme before now. What actually happens is that most schemes exist in limbo—they are simply around; neither in nor out, and neither done nor not done. Periodically, there are outbursts of activity in connection with them, but nothing that would represent substantial progress.

We can ask whether that is a problem, because no progress means that no money is spent, which means that no money is lost. People have a horror of losing money on railway schemes—of spending money futilely. We can look with equanimity on an unused road, but an unused railway is a different proposition. However, I agree with the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton that this does matter. If any such schemes represent economic opportunities missed, they are largely economic opportunities missed in areas that need them: in the north, and outside the south-east and the London area.

Not to progress such schemes leaves in place a transport structure that, post-Beeching, does not make much sense, would never have been designed like that, and has been vandalised. Investigation of such schemes and why some people are keen advocates of them shows that they were often attempts to deal with a huge transport anomaly in their area. The third reason for requiring clarity is that while schemes remain in limbo, the land is preserved, the track bed is kept, and the aspiration and hope is retained—but for what, if there is no case for implementing them?

Many post-Beeching schemes that are still alive and kicking today are not based on pure nostalgia, and there is normally not a case for never implementing them, but there is also no clarity about when all the boxes for implementing them will be ticked. The situation is strange and Kafka-like, and we cannot get out of it. The Government have been honourable and clear in saying that such schemes are off the books for four years, although I understand that some are an exception, but while they are in that strange transport limbo we may be missing serious economic opportunities that we should investigate to a conclusion.

I want to pick up a point made by the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton about the London parallel. The Chair of the Select Committee on Transport constantly recites figures—they elude me for the moment—on how much is spent on transport in London compared with elsewhere.

[Graham Stringer]

Nearly all.

[John Pugh]

I suggest that the ratio is 10:1, and perhaps an hon. Member will correct me if I am wrong. I speak with some bitterness, because I spent two years discussing the Crossrail Bill. Its Committee stage was one of the longest in the past 50 years, and it was pure endurance, but one could not help being impressed by the scale of what was being attempted, although there were days when one thought there were better uses for one’s time. It is an engineering marvel, and will link the bankers of Canary Wharf with their planes at Heathrow. I am not against that, but London is already probably the best connected capital in the world, and it already has a tube and bus network that is the envy of every other city in the UK. I genuinely doubt whether London’s contribution to UK plc will be massively affected whether or not we build Crossrail on the most expensive real estate on the planet, with all that is involved. If the bankers of Canary Wharf, like their Venetian counterparts, are forced to take a vaporetto along the Thames, life would not be greatly worse for the nation or the economy.