Bus Funding

Debate between Helen Morgan and Louise Haigh

Monday 18th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend is right that the 30% cut to his bus services is absolutely shocking. Behind every one of those cuts is a human story of opportunity and ambition curtailed. I have been working closely with Kim McGuinness on speeding up the franchising process. Under the current legislation, Andy Burnham took six years to bring a single bus service under public control, despite having been elected twice in that period on a mandate to do so. We want to ensure that we drastically speed up the process and reduce the cost to local transport authorities and mayoral authorities of getting to franchising, so that the money can be spent effectively on local bus services.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

Shropshire is one of the worst-served counties in England for public transport, having lost 63% of its bus miles since 2015, compared with a national average of about 19%. A person in Market Drayton who wants to get to the closest hospital in Telford, which is a 20-minute car journey, is looking at a five-hour round trip on the bus. We have only one service operating between Oswestry and Chester on Sundays. I am afraid that I was therefore quite disappointed by Shropshire’s £2.5 million revenue allocation in this round of funding. Will the Secretary of State meet me to learn about the huge transport challenges we face in Shropshire, and to see if we can do better?

[Louise Haigh]

I am delighted to confirm that Shropshire’s resource departmental expenditure limit allocation is £3.1 million, so the hon. Lady has already had a further £600,000 out of today’s statement.