Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Jerome Mayhew and Joe Robertson

Committee stage
Thursday 3rd July 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Jerome Mayhew]

It is very hard to add anything to that. I fully support the comments of the hon. Member, and of the hon. Member for North Norfolk. Clause 38 is excellent. It is a great addition—it was introduced by Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb in the other place—because it requires the Secretary of State to undertake a review of, essentially, the impact of the Bill within two years of its passing. The meat of the clause is in subsection (2), which states that the review must assess

“the change in the level of services to villages since the passing of this Act,”

and

“the number of villages in England not served by bus services”,

as well as the

“demographic characteristics of villages in relation to the level of business services available”,

and finally,

“the impact of this Act on the provision of bus services to villages in England.”

It is the review of, “What have we achieved today?” That report will be useful, because it will kick-start discussion of solutions to rural transport.

The hon. Member for North Norfolk has already referred to Sanders, which is a family-owned regional bus company—I think it has grown such that I can properly call it regional. We also have First Bus in Norfolk. We have a radial approach. We know the impact of the £2 bus fare on ridership in our county: it was very useful, including by enabling residents of Fakenham, in my constituency, to get down to Norwich—that is a bus journey of three quarters of an hour for £2. It has been an effective policy to increase ridership. We will see what impact the Bill, if it becomes an Act, will have on ridership and provision in the country as a whole, especially in rural areas. I suspect that the answer is that it will have absolutely no impact.

A review would expose the Bill for what it is: virtue signalling without any funding at all to support the supposed ambitions of local transport authorities. If the Government vote against clause 38 standing part of the Bill, that will clearly demonstrate their concern that the Bill is performative, that it will not actually make services better, and that it has in fact been a monumental waste of time, without funding.

Time and again, throughout consideration of the Bill, I have said that the Conservative party is not against franchising; in fact, it is a Conservative policy development. In the right circumstances, it is a good solution—it is progress—but we have to accept that it is expensive. The Government are pretending that they are facilitating a whole load of local transport authorities to franchise, but are not giving them any money to do it, so we are left with a meaningless shell. The review mandated by clause 38 would hold the Government to account. If I were proven wrong by the report, and it lists a huge number of additional services that have been supplied as a result of the Bill, I would happily come back here and eat my hat.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

I will make a point that I have made before, following on from the shadow Minister’s description of clause 38 as revealing, and of the Bill as transparently not providing funding for anyone. The clause would also be helpful to demonstrate to small local authorities and local authorities that provide over large rural areas, such as my own on the Isle of Wight, the gulf between trying to realise the objectives behind franchising and having responsibility for delivering them, as a small local authority taking on all that financial risk. So, like him, I support the clause standing part of the Bill, if only to reveal to local authorities some of the issues behind it, and that it is not the all-singing, all-dancing solution that they might think.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am grateful for the intervention. I agree with everything that my hon. Friend said.

Moving on, new clause 53 would require a review of the minimum level of bus services required for communities, within a quite ambitious six months. I leave it to the Minister to respond to that.

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Jerome Mayhew and Joe Robertson

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st July 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Jerome Mayhew]

I agree with everything that the hon. Member for North Norfolk said. As I hope I made clear in my opening remarks, this would undoubtedly improve the service provided not just for people with disabilities but for all of us. I will not speak to amendment 43, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Battersea; others may wish to do so.

Amendment 55, tabled by the hon. Member for Wimbledon, would require relevant bodies to support the development of training programmes for relevant staff, which must address the content of disability guidance issued by the Secretary of State. The training would have to be made available to bus operating companies. I support the intention behind the amendment, as guidance alone will not deliver accessible infrastructure unless staff understand and implement it. Training will help to embed best practice among bus staff and improve disabled passengers’ safety and confidence. There is again a “but”, though.

One reason to hesitate is money, but there is also a lack of detail about training providers and the additional financial burdens on local transport authorities. Where will the money come from to conduct the training in franchise bus systems? We have already seen how costly franchising alone can become, with the Bee Network. I would love to have another crack at those numbers and get the Minister finally to admit that he is wrong and I am right, but I will not, as I have tried it three or four times already. The amendment would add even more financial burden on local transport authorities, with a lack of detail about funding.

Clause after clause, we are seeing, first, how expensive the proposed changes are, and secondly, how financially risky they are. Those are two different things. Something can be expensive but the risk is adopted by another organisation, or it can be expensive and the risk lies with the taxpayer. The Bill as a whole, and these clauses in particular, create more financial risk for the taxpayer, particularly in local transport authorities, and a more expensive process, because all these good things are expensive. We want to achieve all of them, but we are not seeing Government money following their ambition.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for highlighting the cost risk for local authorities. He referred to the greater risk for small local authorities, of which my own Isle of Wight council is a very good example. It is dwarfed by other transport authorities, and on cost risk alone would be unable to make use of the so-called freedoms in the Bill.

[Jerome Mayhew]

My hon. Friend is quite right, but in partial defence of the Government’s position, they are not requiring a change; they are facilitating a change should a local authority choose to go down the franchising route. None the less, concerns remain, and my hon. Friend is quite right to highlight them. Many local authorities will wish to pull the levers of state, and this looks like a shiny new lever. They are being led by the charismatic mayoral combined authorities—well, charismatic to some; I couldn’t possibly comment. Transport for Greater Manchester is now being followed by Liverpool and Transport for West Midlands. Those are the trailblazers. They are all going for what we have described as full-fat franchising.

I am concerned that for many local authorities, being seduced by this new opportunity, as they might see it, will be a terrible mistake, and they will come an absolute cropper. Think of the cost of running a franchise service: even if a local authority has not created a municipal bus company and is just contracting out the franchise services, the commercial risk stays with the local authority. That could easily bankrupt a local authority of the size of the Isle of Wight. It is a very significant concern, and my hon. Friend is right to raise it.

Amendment 30 was tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion, who is not in her place. The amendment would, in clause 30, after “place” insert

“from the surrounding area and from the nearest stopping place in the opposite direction on any route”.

When we consider the usability of a bus stop, whether it is a floating bus stop or a shared use bus stop boarder, we should have it in mind that that the vast majority of people who take a but journey will want to come back in the opposite direction. The interrelationship between the bus stop on one side of the road and the bus stop on the other is important. The amendment highlights that and includes it in the Bill.

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[Joe Robertson]

Does the shadow Minister agree that it is slightly ridiculous to expect cyclists to be able to recognise that somebody disabled is seeking to cross a cycle lane? That seems to assume that people with disabilities are instantly recognisable, which is a very old-fashioned view of disability. It is plainly ridiculous to expect cyclists to make such a recognition. It is bad for them as well as being plainly bad for people with disabilities.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am grateful for that intervention; my hon. Friend is right. I do not want to demonise cyclists. Cyclists are not out there actively trying to mow down pedestrians seeking to cross at floating bus stops; they are doing their best in the vast majority of cases, but we have created, with the best of intentions, a conflict between foot passengers and cyclists. I would submit that we have the balance of convenience wrong, and we should be brave and bold enough to admit where we have made a mistake and should take effective steps to improve the situation.

Floating bus stops are inherently inaccessible and dangerous. They compromise the safety of people with visual impairments, who potentially cannot see or hear cyclists. They confuse wheelchair users and those with mobility impairments, who are put off using public transport. New clause 12 would strengthen democratic oversight by requiring proposals to be laid before both Houses of Parliament.

New clause 13 was also tabled by the hon. Member for Battersea; in her absence I shall set out what it does. The new clause would require the Secretary of State to commission an independent review of the safety and accessibility of floating bus stops and shared use bus boarders to be undertaken in collaboration with groups representing disabled people in England. I made clear in my earlier remarks the dangers caused by floating bus stops to the safety of disabled, partially sighted, blind and elderly people, and I support the new clause, as it would add further checks and balances to clause 31 and strengthen the Government’s stance on the issue.

The requirement on the Secretary of State to commission an independent safety and accessibility review and to undertake that review in collaboration with groups representing disabled people would not only help to ensure that the Government’s response to floating bus stops was evidence-based and centred specifically on safety concerns and the lived experience of people trying to use such bus stops, but accommodate consulting the wider disabled community, not just the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee.

New clause 40 was tabled by the hon. Member for Wimbledon and he will be delighted to hear that he has my support. I will leave it to him to rehearse all the details of the drafting, if he wishes to; suffice it to say that that the new clause would require the Secretary of State to conduct a review of all existing floating bus stops—not future ones, but the ones that are already there—and their level of safety, and to state the Government’s plans to implement necessary retrofits to ensure that they are fully accessible and safe. I welcome any amendments that add checks and balances to the Bill to help to ensure the safety of passengers and nullify the safety issues with floating bus stops. My new clause 47 accommodates the aims of new clause 40(2), but goes one step further by prohibiting any new floating bus stops after the day on which the Bill becomes an Act. I fully support the Liberal Democrat new clause.

Members will be delighted to hear that my new clause 47 is the last clause in this group, so I will sit down in a moment. Were the new clause to be adopted, it would do three important things. Subsection (1) would establish an immediate prohibition on the construction of new floating bus stops by local authorities—so we would stop digging. That is the first thing: we would stop making new floating bus stops. Subsection (2) would compel the Secretary of State to review existing infra-structure to assess compliance with accessibility and inclusive design principles—that is, to see what we have and to analyse it to see whether it is accessible. Subsection (3) would require a clear and public statement to Parliament setting out what changes would be made, what steps the Secretary of State would take to ensure that they were delivered, and what guidance would be issued to local authorities to support that work.

The new clause is designed to be a pragmatic response to persistent and credible concerns raised by the disabled community, charities representing blind people and elderly bus passengers who have to struggle with the safety challenges that persist with these bus stop designs.

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Debate between Jerome Mayhew and Joe Robertson

Committee stage
Thursday 26th June 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

On my hon. Friend’s point about rural areas such as his constituency and my constituency on the Isle of Wight, it is difficult to move between towns. On the Isle of Wight, we have a radial system that makes it easy to get in and out of Newport, which sits in the middle of the island, but it is less easy to go anywhere else. I am at a slight loss as to how we get over that fundamental issue in bus franchising—this is geography, and the market for moving between villages is clearly smaller. I am concerned that the entire franchising model and, indeed, this clause are overselling a solution to a fundamental problem. If we are to get over that hurdle, it would ultimately require a lot of public money.

[Jerome Mayhew]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; there is no commercial case for large-scale, frequent bus services to every small rural community. I have certainly not come across such a case, even if one does exist. The solution—if there is a solution—will be one of a number of things. Under a franchising scheme, it would be open to a local transport authority to invest in and design a scheme that provides for frequent bus services to every rural community. It would be possible to do that, but it would be phenomenally expensive.

Already, one of the key criticisms of the Bill is that it has no money attached to it, so we are going to spend the next two and a half weeks virtue signalling about how wonderful franchising could be. It is not mandatory, and no one is actually going to do it—outside of the big mayoral authorities that are doing it anyway under the Bus Services Act 2017—because there is no money supporting the Bill. It would be incredibly expensive.

There is an alternative, hybrid solution: a combination of scheduled bus services on the key arterial routes from big villages into their major towns, such as from Norfolk going into Norwich, a rural hub-and-spoke system for the more remote villages, as suggested by the hon. Member for North Norfolk, and demand-responsive public provision.

On Tuesday, I described this as the “Uberfication” of public transport. It still is unlikely to make sense on a purely commercial basis, but it is the kind of focused provision of public sector transport that could work in a highly rural area where the aggregate cost would be less than the blind provision on frequent, full bus services to every community, which would be monumentally expensive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew]

The hon. Lady is bending over backwards to think of hypothetical instances in which it is possible that something like that could exist. The fact remains that we must ask—this comes down to the philosophical difference between us, perhaps—whether we are looking after the passenger or the supplier. From my perspective, the Bill should have services for passengers squarely in its sights. If passengers will benefit from a new service, the local transport authority should allow it. After all, the aim of the Bill is to maximise general utility for the wider bus service. Amendment 47 would therefore prevent local authorities from sitting on their hands, as the hon. Lady suggests they might.

Amendment 48 goes one step further. If the previous two amendments were red meat to some members of this Committee, this one will send them over the top. It would scrap entirely the convoluted assessments about balancing benefits and adverse effects in proposed new subsections (5A)(a) and (b). The authority would simply take a view on the benefits for persons making journeys on the proposed service—what is wrong with that? If the service has benefits for customers, why should we not just go for it? It is a straightforward process where applicants are in the driving seat. The amendment would provide higher certainty for applicants and therefore encourage additional service providers.

I anticipate that hon. Members may say, “What about the web—the franchise service—that the local transport authority may be trying to design?” But I seek to remind them about the incentives of providers. Again, I speak as a former businessman. We sometimes forget something in this place. We make lots of rules and we deal with processes ad infinitum, and we think that everyone will be incredibly logical. We say, “Oh yes, they have to go through this process, then that process and the other one, and then the local authority may decide to help them or not.” That ignores the basic maxim of private enterprise, which is that time kills deals. If a process is convoluted by design, it is also, by design, time consuming, and therefore expensive and uncertain in its outcome.

Let us think of a potential service provider looking through these provisions. They would say, “I’ve jumped through the hoops of proposed new subsection (5A)(a) and (b), and I’ve demonstrated the evidential basis for this application,” but then there is the discretion at the end where the local authority may, for whatever reason, choose not to award the deal based on some plan for some date in the future that we have not even heard about. Is the provider even going to bother doing it in the first place? This is an important issue of practicality. Commercial organisations respond to incentives, and if we make something long-winded, expensive and complex, they are much less likely to bother doing it. They will employ their capital, their time and their creative energies elsewhere.

[Joe Robertson]

The more I hear the shadow Minister unpicking all these issues, the more it transpires that the whole franchising model that the Bill offers to local authorities is really rather unattractive. Particularly for smaller local authorities, it is complicated, and there is a huge risk that when the new service is implemented, despite the best of intentions, it will not run in the way that the local authority or commercial provider thought it would. All the while, the local authority—I am thinking in my case of the Isle of Wight council or the potential combined mayoral authority with Hampshire—is taking on that risk of things going wrong. The shadow Minister is getting to the heart of a fundamental problem with the Bill: it will not sort out bus services country-wide, particularly in rural areas. It is really just a model for the big cities.

[Jerome Mayhew]

My hon. Friend is right. In broad terms, the Bill facilitates additional opportunities for local transport authorities, which is a good thing. As I have said, allowing franchising is in fact a Conservative concept. It goes back to the days of Mrs Thatcher, but more recently, the 2017 changes allowed franchising without consent for mayoral combined authorities. In fact, any local transport authority was allowed to apply for franchising operations, but with the safeguard that it required the consent of the Secretary of State for Transport, because of the huge commercial risks associated with franchising for local transport authorities, particularly smaller ones. That was an eminently sensible safeguard that I have spoken about previously, so now we have that risk.

Even if the local transport authority is capable of managing that risk, of developing the expertise to design these complex systems in-house, as is anticipated, and of starting a municipal bus company on top of designing the franchise operation, we cannot get away from the conclusion that is expensive. Whichever way it is designed, if it is going to improve services, it will be expensive.