National Bus Strategy: England

Debate between Grant Shapps and Ian Paisley

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that, particularly in rural areas such as East Devon and in many other parts of the country, the social value of a route is often missed by the current formulas. That is one reason why, with this bus strategy, we have launched a £20 million fund to develop rural services that work better. A lot of that is about making sure that, to have that certainty, the service is more regular and is funded, even at times when it requires public support to be funded. There are other innovative ideas, including, for example, having buses available on demand. People are used to using an app to call a taxi. Why should they not be able to do that to have a bus route go via them in order to get to where they want to go? There are many very innovative ideas, which will be very applicable in rural areas as well.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

As the Member of Parliament whose constituency includes the Wrightbus factory, which has carried out pioneering work—it was the first to produce the hydrogen bus for the UK and the battery diesel bus—I have been pushing the Prime Minister on this for some time. I welcome the statement and the plans to buy British-made buses, but there are many shovel-ready projects available for zero-emission buses across the UK. Under the current plans, the roll-out will not be until 2022? What are we waiting for? Why cannot we get on with it? I hope that the Secretary of State will tell his officials that they have a mission to get this money out the door, to get it into shovel-ready projects, and to buy British buses without any further delay.

[Grant Shapps]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s impatience, but the money is for this year. That £120 million for those zero-carbon buses is to be spent on the introduction of those first buses for this year, so I do not recognise any particular reason to delay. We are in touch with all the bus manufacturers, and we wish them well in their progress.