Community Transport

Debate between Ian Blackford and Neil Coyle

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. Let me also thank the hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) for securing this important debate.

We have shed a lot of light today on the benefits for all our communities from community transport. Let me also thank the five Members who have spoken in this debate and briefly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Dr Monaghan) on raising the important issue of VAT exemption for vehicles, which I hope the Minister will address. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) on his comments. He made a very good point that the cost of cutting funding may result in additional costs elsewhere for our councils, as indeed, did the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) with his last point about the effect that community transport has on people’s quality of life.

However, as we have this debate on the cuts that may happen to community transport, I cannot help but reflect back on the election campaign and what the Scottish National party said: that there was an alternative to austerity and that we wanted Government spending throughout the UK increase by £140 billion. That sensible, pragmatic approach would have seen the budget deficit shrink to 2% of net national income by 2020, relieving some of the pressures on councils. I appeal to Conservative Members to accept the sense of that. We should approach the Chancellor to see what he is doing to relieve some of the pressures on our councils.

I want to reflect on some of the issues affecting the highlands and islands, which my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross mentioned. In my constituency and throughout the highlands and islands, community transport provides a lifeline to thousands of people in a vast number of communities. Many remote rural communities suffer from lack of access to services through the absence of public transport, which has a negative effect on their sustainability and economic viability.

The lack of public transport is often linked with lack of other public services: schools, medical facilities, shopping facilities and so on. Lack of resources can lead to a declining population, and within that an ageing population that is increasingly isolated. Providing access to transport is something the Scottish Government take seriously, although responsibility for funding services was made the full responsibility of Scottish local authorities from the 1 April 2008.

The Scottish Government recognise the important role community transport services play in providing accessible transport options as part of the transport network in Scotland. They play a major part in reducing isolation and increasing social inclusion. It is right that responsibility for such activities is in the hands of local authorities, which are the appropriate bodies to understand the needs of those in their communities. In this case, I recognise that Highland Council has sought to be proactive in working with others in the highlands to deliver effective solutions.

There is a question of what can be delivered through public transport and what is the inter-relationship with community transport. The Community Transport Association states:

“Community transport enables people to live independently, participate in their community and to access education, employment, health and other services. It uses and adapts conventional vehicles to do exceptional things—always for a social purpose and community benefit, but never for a profit.”

Transport Scotland, with the Community Transport Association and independent consultants, collaborated on research into the community transport sector in March 2015. A survey asked respondents to list three main purposes for which their services are used. It found that 71% listed social outings as the main purpose, 56% listed care centres and day centres and 47% listed health-related purposes. That is clear evidence of the positive impact on the wellbeing of users from being able to access community transport.

Highland Council spends around £15 million on public and school transport. Separately from the public transport, the council currently supports 23 community transport projects. For some years its funding has been renewed annually, but it has now invited new applications for three-year grants, which is very welcome. The challenge is a 10% reduction in the budget. To put that in context, Highland Council has a budget of £416,961 for community transport. The council states:

“Community Transport provides a flexible, economic service to many people who are not reached by conventional transport, and its coverage could be usefully increased, given the right operating conditions.”

We understand the financial pressures on councils, but in the light of the evidence of the benefits of such spending and the grim reality of isolation that can occur if such links are cut, spending in this area must be protected. Given that the Highland council states that these services could be usefully increased, I am calling on the council today to protect this budget.

[Neil Coyle]

The hon. Gentleman focused on leisure need. Is he aware that it is not a statutory duty on local authorities to provide that? What is his party doing to improve social care legislation in the absence of central Government funding to ensure that the leisure needs of older and isolated people are better taken into account under the statutory provision of services?

[Ian Blackford]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point and I agree with him. It is one reason why the Scottish Government have integrated social care into health care. We understand the importance of bringing the two together. We have made enormous steps to deliver on that and will continue to do so.

[Neil Coyle]

What about leisure?

[Ian Blackford]

Social care certainly has a leisure element. Transport needs are associated with that and it is important that community transport plays its part. Important discussions are taking place and include, for example, hospital transport to the new hospital in Broadford. That is part of the mix we are discussing.

In remote and sparsely populated communities there are enormous hurdles in ensuring that we deliver. A sense of isolation hampers community cohesion, connection to social and health services, which the hon. Member for Amber Valley mentioned, and acts as a barrier to people settling in sparsely populated communities.

I represent the largest constituency in the country, with a land mass of 12,000 sq km. It is by far and away the most sparsely populated constituency in the country. Whether we are talking of public transport or other forms of transport connectivity, we suffer from being in the slow lane. Let me take air connectivity as an example. In the 1930s, it was possible to fly from Skye from either Skeabost or Glenbrittle, as indeed my wife’s grandmother did. Today, we have no regular air link to Skye, although we have a perfectly accessible runway at Broadford.

We need regular passenger services to be resumed to benefit local communities, tourists and businesses. An economic assessment is taking place on re-establishing air links, and although it will go to the Scottish Government in the first instance, I ask the Government in London to do what they can to ensure that Skye and the western highlands are connected to the outside world. There is much debate about an additional runway for London. I want just one functioning runway for Skye and the north-west coast of my country.

There is a challenge in providing transport capabilities throughout this vast region, but whether you live in a metropolitan area or a highland township, transport connectivity is a basic need. I applaud Highland Council for being imaginative in developing solutions. For example, a research project looking at rural transport options for the Glenelg area was carried out by Robert Gordon University. A pilot scheme was established and provided a capped sum of £3,000 to the Glenelg community for the scheme to run for 12 months. It procured a local taxi service for a fixed fee and sold tickets to travellers for £3 with the balance being provided to the taxi through the community group. It was a low-cost scheme that brought enormous benefits to the community of Glenelg and it has been continued. It is a good example of a locally driven solution with the community working with the local authority and a university with proven skills in the area of community transport.

One community that I know particularly well is Waternish, which is on a peninsula at the north end of Skye. It has a resident population of several hundred people, 35% of whom are retired, often with no access to their own transport. There is no shop in Waternish and those who live in Geary in Waternish and want to get to the nearest shop must travel 11 miles to Dunvegan. There is no bus to the peninsula, which is 7.5 miles long. There is a school bus but it is not licensed to carry anyone other than school pupils out of Waternish. This is something that needs addressing because it just adds insult to injury when a public service could be provided.

For Waternish and other communities, it is a question of how community transport can fill the gap and how we can connect them to the rest of Skye and beyond. We must rise to the challenge because if we do not we will leave communities at the margin, isolated and witnessing decline.

There is a willingness to tackle those challenges, often with the resourcefulness and drive of those who live in rural communities. They tend to want their communities to be sustainable and there is cause for hope. When I look at such places, I see entrepreneurialism and many people starting their own local businesses, often providing the highest quality products. Local food suppliers and outstanding craft producers, often working with others, want to interact with the local authority to fashion their own community-based transport solution.

If we are to reach out and deliver connectivity, the kind of example that I described in Glenelg needs to be experienced in other areas. A partnership of local authorities and communities working together can fill in some of the remaining gaps, but there is a desire to recognise that budgets have to be protected to allow this to happen.