Rural Bus Services

Debate between Guy Opperman and Lord Walney

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[John Woodcock]

My hon. Friend says Tyne and Wear, and I am sure that the Minister, who has inherited this situation, will tell us where the contracts have been a success. There was progress in some areas, but we need to go further. I shall move on to that in a moment.

Some areas have not been mentioned in the debate, but they face severe cuts, and some local authorities, such as Cambridgeshire and Hartlepool, are threatening to withdraw funding from all supported bus services. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) set out some of the problems in her area. Elsewhere in the north, Teesdale faces the prospect of having no buses at all from Christmas. That will be devastating for those affected, who often rely on buses as their only way to get around, be it for work or leisure, or to get the basic essentials. We have heard different perspectives on what the solution should be for such areas, and I ask the Minister to say more about the transport and services that we as a country are prepared to support.

[Guy Opperman]

I have been listening very closely to the past eight minutes of the hon. Gentleman’s speech. Prior to that, we were having a cross-party debate in which all Members agreed that things could be done. I accept that we are in an age of austerity and that individual councils, whatever their political make-up, have to make big decisions and face difficult problems. Thus far, however, the shadow Minister has solely addressed the lack of funding—which is, of course, a difficult issue—but he has not said what he would do on behalf of the Opposition. That is what I would like to hear, perhaps in relation to comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) and other Members.

[John Woodcock]

In that case, I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman will be sticking around in the debate.

There is a debate about what kind of transport service we should have. I understand the point made by the hon. Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) before he had to leave about “use it or lose it”, but equally, the point has been made that some rural areas will never experience the mass usage of public transport seen in more urban or built-up areas. We should not say as a country that because some services are not frequently filled to the brim, we should be prepared to remove them. We want greater focus on dial-a-ride schemes such as those mentioned today, and we must find alternatives to running large buses that are never full through rural communities—such a system is not satisfactory on cost grounds because, as the commercial operators of those companies say, the cost per passenger is often sky high. Neither does it satisfy us on environmental grounds, so we must be bold in enabling communities to look at alternatives.

One key area that the Government should explore concerns empowering local authorities and handing greater control to local areas to fund and support the services they want. Funding and support from central Government are critical to that, and the scale of the cuts is having a devastating effect in some areas. There is frustration in many parts of the country, be they rural or urban, about the inability of local authorities to access all the disparate funding streams that go into supporting buses, and at the way that services are contracted. In areas such as Barrow and Furness, some services within the town and elsewhere are commercially viable, while others require support. It is time to look again at how we are forced to contract out those services and cannot mix up the provision and procurement that currently goes to private providers. When the Minister rises to his feet, I would like to hear what he thinks of our idea of integrated transport authorities, and about what can be done to enable swift moves towards that and give local communities more authority.

We need to address the issue of free bus passes. I am fascinated by the idea that that was a bear trap left by the previous Government—the idea is that new Ministers have fallen into it and been trapped—because I am sure that before the election I heard the Leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister, accusing his Labour opponents of lying when they suggested that there could be a change or a threat to the free bus pass for the over-60s as installed by the Labour Government. Now we see Government Members queuing up to say that it is wrong and should go.