Local Bus Market

Debate between Graham Stringer and Julie Hilling

Thursday 10th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stringer]

Every minute.

[Julie Hilling]

I asked a student who lived there, “Do the buses stop in the night?” and she said, “Oh yes, they stop in the middle of the night.” I then asked, “How long do they stop for?” and she replied, “For 10 minutes, at 4 am.” There are buses every minute, 24 hours a day, apart from during those 10 minutes at 4 am.

A couple of years ago in Manchester, the situation was so bad that no other vehicles could get into the city centre. All the buses were queued far back because so many people were competing to run their buses along that corridor. We can compare that with the estate I live on. The service to Hag Fold stops in the evening, and on a Sunday it does not start until midday, so no one can use the bus to go to church on a Sunday morning, or for a day out. That is the reality of our buses, and I live in an urban area; I am not even talking about a rural district. We need, therefore, planning for services across an area that is not based just on whether a route is profitable. We need a service that goes as close to people’s doors as possible, otherwise those who can drive will.

Cost is incredibly important. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), the excellent Chair of the Transport Committee, talked about the ever-increasing cost of bus travel, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer).

For the third time this week, I will talk about my neighbour, Leah, because she will be affected by the cuts to tax credits and other benefits. She is a mum of two who works 16 hours a week and earns £101. She pays £18 a week—£4.50 a day—for her travel card, which, of course, can be used only with one provider that stops serving the estate in the evening. Unless she gets home early enough, she has to pay another bus company to get her anywhere near home. Compare that with £2.80 a day in London for a service that can be used with any provider.

Travel cards are important for reducing costs and opening up integrated services. Look at the liberation of Oyster that we have had for nine years. Those of us who reside in London for a few days each week have been amazed by the Oyster card: people can go on any bus or tube by flashing the cost-effective card. Compare that with people in my area, who have to decide from which company they will buy a travel card on any given day, because a card can be used only on one service, such as First. They have to ask themselves whether the company will manage to take them on the whole of their journey, or whether they will have to buy separate fares because the company will take them on only part of the journey.

Transport for Greater Manchester is trying hard to get some sort of Oyster mark 2 for the conurbation, but there is no surprise that the operators are not co-operating. Fares in south Manchester are 15% to 20% cheaper than those in the north of the conurbation. Having different operators is the only answer, because it surely cannot be true that diesel costs more in Bolton than in Withington. Costs seem to be part of the reason why the operators are not co-operating. What will the Minister do to support areas such as Greater Manchester to introduce travel cards that will liberate services for so many people?

Running a big bus company is a licence to print money. Since deregulation, the companies are earning a profit of some 7% each year at no risk. If a service is uneconomic, the operators can cancel it and hope that the local authority will pay them to deliver it. Quality contracts would enable routes to be bundled so that operators would have to deliver all the routes in a bundle, both good and poor. They will still be able to make a profit, but they could not continue to hold transport authorities to ransom over the provision of a route.

People make choices about where they live and work, and about schools, based on public transport. What are they supposed to do when they lose the bus service that enables them to lead their life? We know of people who have had to give up their job because they have lost a bus service and can no longer get to their place of work. I have a group of women in Blackrod who can no longer go to their church, which they went to for many years, because the bus stopped running along that route. I ask the Government to use the better bus area fund to support all models of co-operation, including quality contracts. They should also do more to support passenger transport executives and local authorities that are considering quality contracts.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton mentioned earlier, we know operators have threatened a scorched earth effect by removing all buses if a transport authority wants to go the way of introducing quality contracts. Well, I do not think that a bus operator should be allowed to obstruct the implementation of Government legislation by making such threats. It would not be acceptable for other groups to threaten to thwart Government legislation, so why is it acceptable for a bus operator to do so?

Bus travel has zoomed up in London. Why has bus travel gone up so fast and so far? It is about cost, availability, the Oyster card and regulation, and it is very much about subsidy; it is about the state saying, “Public transport is a public service, not just a means to get around.” My constituents in Bolton West deserve the same sort of service as London residents, and I look to the Minister to address how he can help the Greater Manchester transport authority and my constituents get the service they deserve.

Northern Rail Hub

Debate between Graham Stringer and Julie Hilling

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) on securing this debate, and on his commitment in campaigning for the northern hub. It is wonderful to see so many hon. Members from across the north in the Chamber, and one or two additional supporters who are more than welcome in our fight. As chair of the all-party group on rail in the north, I am pleased to see so many members of the group here. Hon. Members across parties are united on the issue of the northern hub. We are divided only by the Pennines, which are another reason why the whole hub must be united—so that we do not have the perpetual Pennine divide.

The Minister can judge how important the issue is for all of us, and how crucial it is that the whole hub be funded. We will not have the full economic benefit across the whole north if there is a piecemeal approach. I was worried recently when the Secretary of State talked about the welcome electrification of the Manchester-York line as part of the northern hub. I do not want to split hairs, but electrification was always seen as an addition to the hub, and not as the hub itself. It is essential not to lose part of the hub to that electrification, welcome though it is. It is the hub that will hold us all together.

The hub is not glamorous like High Speed 2, but it is essential if we are to tackle overcrowding, increase line speed, reduce journey times and increase services. It is an integral part of High Speed 2. I speak from bitter experience. When Virgin high-frequency trains were introduced with three trains an hour from Manchester to London, services to my constituency diminished. The trains terminated at Manchester Victoria, and we lost services to the airport and elsewhere because inter-city trains took the paths that our trains had previously taken. The only way to prevent that in future is to ensure that the engineering works proposed for the hub are carried out.

We will have more trains through and to Manchester, and more trains will connect to the west coast main line. Eventually, trains will connect to High Speed 2. That unglamorous engineering work will provide passing places so that we continue to have slow, stopping services with fast services. It will improve signalling, the Ordsall chord route across Manchester city, and Manchester Victoria station. Any hon. Members who have spent time at that station will know that it is not the nicest in the world, and I as a woman do not feel particularly safe there. There will be improvements at the station, and two new platforms at Manchester Piccadilly.

Such improvements are as important to the north as the shiny new 250 mph train, and will be to the whole economy. Services will not then stop completely at Manchester Piccadilly when the Huddersfield train leaves, because it crosses every train path coming into the station, with the result that nothing else can come in and out. Constituents in Bolton will have a better, faster service, and people at my home station, Atherton, will not have to play sardines on the train, or have long waits at another gruesome station, Salford Crescent. They will be able to join the inter-city lines.

The project will bring £4 of benefit for every pound spent, and will do something to redress the imbalance between spending in the north and south. I do not understand why Londoners should have three times as much taxpayers’ money spent on their public transport as our constituents in the north.

[Graham Stringer]

During the debate I have done some arithmetic, which I believe is right, and which my hon. Friend may be interested in. Three months’ expenditure on Crossrail would pay for the whole northern hub. Is that not extraordinary?

[Julie Hilling]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which is interesting. It has been interesting during the High Speed 2 debate that people have frowned about putting so much money into the north, and people in the south-west have rightly asked why they are not receiving expenditure. There never seems to be an outcry about expenditure in London. I spend part of my life in London and before becoming an MP, I wanted to come to our capital city. Investment is needed in London, but it is also needed in the regions.