Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Helen Maguire and Ruth Cadbury

Report stage
Wednesday 10th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury]

I speak in the context of devolution within an overarching set of values. I will not go into the specifics of what level a bus fare should be, but the overall ridership and the sustainability of the bus system are a key objective. I know the Minister will say that with devolution, how that happens is up to the local transport authorities.

Returning to the evidence we heard in Committee, as everybody here knows, buses remain the most used form of public transport, yet the number of bus journeys in England outside London has dropped from 4.6 billion in 2009 to 3.6 billion in 2024. Alongside the declining number of journeys, the need to improve services and increase ridership speaks to the evidence received by the Committee about the impact on social isolation of a lack of access to buses. Transport for the North told the Committee that in 2024 some 11.4 million people across England faced transport-related social exclusion, and there was evidence that the problem was worse in towns than in cities.

The Minister told us that the Government intended the Bill to deliver services that were more affordable and reliable, faster and better integrated. However, when pressed on whether people in England would see more buses to more places by the end of this Parliament, he said that that is certainly their intention and they are doing everything possible to make it happen. My contention is that without that being baked into the body of the Bill, there is a risk that in many places there could be a continued decline in bus services over time.

Amendment 66 to clause 14 relates to socially necessary services. It seeks to insert in line 5 of page 10 after the word “services”:

“along with a description of the criteria or methodology used to determine which services are considered socially necessary”.

It would be for the local transport authority to define that, but in a publicly visible way. The amendment asks that local authorities be required to produce a transparent methodology for how they determine these socially necessary services.

The North West Surrey Bus Users Group made the argument to the Committee that a clear and consistently applied definition was essential for holding local authorities accountable for maintaining basic service levels on loss-making routes. It warned that in the absence of sufficient guidance to date, some authorities had, to a greater or lesser extent, abdicated their responsibilities. As a result of such evidence, the Committee’s report recommended that the Department should mandate local transport authorities to publish their own transparent methodology for how they determine which bus services qualify as socially necessary to ensure public accountability—hence the reason for this amendment.

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

North East Surrey College of Technology in my constituency is not accessible by bus, leaving students having to travel even further for their education because local bus services are simply not serving young people. Does the hon. Member agree that the Bill must expand the definition of socially necessary local services to explicitly include schools and colleges?

[Ruth Cadbury]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention, which goes to the heart of what I am saying: it is not for this Bill and this Government to define whether or not colleges, schools and so forth should be included—one would hope they would be—but it is for the local authority to define their socially necessary services according to the needs in their area. They should publish it, and a requirement to do so should be in the Bill.

I am pretty sure that the Minister will say, “Don’t worry, Chair of the Select Committee, it’ll be in the guidance.” My concern is that guidance is to some extent discretionary and can be changed over time. I, Alex Mayer and others would like to see the need to have a definition and methodology for socially necessary services stated in the Bill.