Zero-emission Buses

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Ian Paisley]

I was going to come on to that point later, but I will come on to it now, because it gets to the nub of the issue. The ZEBRA 1 and 2 schemes promised the United Kingdom £312 million of taxpayers’ money to fund the purchase of 2,270 buses. That is a major impact on the provision of zero-emission buses. I hope that Members are shocked by the next figure, however, because, according to the final purchasing decisions that have been made, 46% of those 2,270 buses will be manufactured outside the UK, principally by China.

On the one side, we have to giggle, because we are making zero-emission, green-energy buses, within our shores, for the home market, and therefore the footprint of the manufacturing of those things should also be green, but 46% of these buses are coming from what is, apart from Australia, the furthest away country in the world, and they are being delivered to us. I am not going to bash the companies that make them in China, but their buses have a shorter life cycle on our roads—almost a third less—and are therefore ultimately less efficient, yet 46% of the ZEBRA money is going overseas. What is that money doing? It is supporting overseas technology—cutting-edge technology. It is supporting overseas jobs. It is supporting cutting-edge, well-paid, highly skilled manufacturing jobs and it is supporting them in other countries, but we are crying out for that money to be spent on high-skill, green-energy, high-tech jobs across the entirety of the United Kingdom. Some 10,000 people are employed in the supply chain for manufacturing buses across the United Kingdom: electronics engineers, hydrogen engineers and manufacturers, engineers, of steel. All that is being undermined by a policy that was put in place to build beautiful, British-made, clean, green, better buses.

I am pleading, not on behalf of the companies, which are big companies, but on behalf of workers across the United Kingdom who are entitled to these jobs and who are entitled to bring stuff home to their wives and families and their husbands and families, to make sure that the jobs stay in British hands. I am not arguing that we buy an inferior product, but British-made buses, whether they are made by Switch, Wrightbus or Alexander Dennis, are the leading cutting-edge buses in the world. That is shown because they are manufactured not just for this country—other countries demand them. But we cannot go in and undercut other bus companies in countries that make buses. The countries that buy buses from us do not make buses, so we are competing in a fair market. Unfortunately, one of the largest countries in the world, the Chinese state, is manufacturing buses, subsidising their manufacture and the technology is coming here and undermining us. We have to take a good, long, hard look at that and ask the question: is that really where we want to be?

Every constituency in the UK benefits from British-made manufactured products. I do not say that glibly; it is based on fact. I have gone through a register of all the councils and local authorities across the whole United Kingdom that have received money from the ZEBRA zero-emission scheme, and have listed all the constituencies covered by that—it comes to about 180 constituencies, and those 180 constituencies benefit in some way from the manufacture of buses in the United Kingdom. They are getting ZEBRA money, but unfortunately 46% of the money is going outside this country and they are not buying the British product.

I will not do so, Mr Rosindell, but I could read out the name of every single local authority that has received millions of pounds. I have the information here and I am happy to leave it in the Library for hon. Members to study. It goes through every single local authority that has received millions on millions of pounds, yet some of those authorities are not spending that money on British-made products. A couple of examples stand out, and I will bring them to Members’ attention.

Last year in Blackpool, there had to be a complete retender after protests led by the chairman of the APPG, myself and other members of that group. We pushed the Government to retender the Blackpool order because it had gone to a Chinese company. It was an order for 90 buses, or about 30 million quid of manufactured goods. I am glad to say that the tender, which originally went to the Yutong company in China, was won following retender by Alexander Dennis. It was discovered that the social and economic benefit that flowed from the manufacture of those buses in the United Kingdom outweighed a slightly cheaper product being brought in from overseas.

Transport for London announced at the weekend the purchase of over 100 new double-decker electric buses. Unfortunately, that order was made to a Chinese company called BYD, further increasing the reliance on oversea supply chains. I want to deal with this matter of Transport for London. No matter which part of the United Kingdom we come from, no matter our passion about Ulster, Scotland, Wales or the north of England, London is our capital. It is the flagship. What happens in London, the world sees. It is the window into the United Kingdom. When I stand on the Terrace of this House and see bus after bus going over Westminster bridge, I know by the shape of them, “That one was made in Ballymena, and so was that one. That one was made in Scotland, and that one was also made in Ballymena.” I know by the shape of them that those buses are ours, and we are proud. That says to the workers in my constituency, “Look what you’ve done—isn’t that fantastic?” Their work is in the window to the world. People see them or jump on and off them and think, “These are fabulous advertisements of the skillset that is in the United Kingdom”.

I then hear today that a £40 million contract has been handed by TfL to BYD in China to make the next 100 buses for this city. There are thousands of buses in this city. People say, “You’ll hardly notice them”. That is not the point. The point of the matter is that that is where we are spending our money, and that will soon become the flagship. People say, “Well, they’re slightly cheaper.” That is penny wise and pound foolish if that is the way they are making the decision, because the situation is much more disturbing than it just being slightly cheaper.

I take the view that it is not green to buy the buses from so far away whenever we are manufacturing them at home. In 2021, the United Nations working group on business and human rights wrote to BYD, saying that it

“had received information that your company may be involved through your supply chain in alleged forced labour, arbitrary detention and trafficking of… Uighur [Muslims] and other minority workers”.

BYD did not respond to that inquiry from the United Nations. Whenever it was approached by the trade magazines to respond, BYD refused to comment. Our nation has a duty to ensure that if we are buying overseas products, we are not buying them from a country that uses slave labour or abuses its workforce. I will tell hon. Members one thing: our workforce in the United Kingdom is not abused. They are paid good wages, make good products and are proud of what they do. If that abuse is happening, it is a double offence on what we should be looking at and doing with this resource.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

My hon. Friend has underlined the crucial issue of human rights abuses and the persecution, trafficking and all sorts of things happening to ensure that China can produce a bus more cheaply. When it comes to our councils buying buses in the United Kingdom—it is brought up all the time in Parliament—is there not a need for central Government to ensure that if that is what is happening, those buses or, indeed, any product, are not bought?

[Ian Paisley]

That is a point I will come to whenever I make requests of the Minister at the end of my speech. I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point.

I have an appeal for Transport for London, which has been one of Northern Ireland’s most brilliant customers. It allowed us to come up with the new iconic London double-decker bus, which is a flagship—it has been brilliant. Whether the administration has been controlled by the Conservatives or by Labour, the respective Mayors have been absolutely brilliant about helping Wrightbus to go forward, but the decision by the current Mayor and Transport for London should be taken back and looked at again. It is totally wrong and scandalous that our nation’s capital should have a bus with a questionable reputation concerning its manufacture and £40 million of ZEBRA money.

I have some policy asks for the Minister. I am delighted that he is visiting my constituency soon. I hope he will visit Wrightbus and other manufacturers, and see the supply chain across the whole of our country, including all the other little companies—micro-companies—that rely on this manufacturing giant. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to a number of things about the impact of ZEBRA. First, the Department for Transport should ensure that no ZEBRA 2 funding is used by local authorities to purchase buses from outside the UK, which was a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). To support this, bus operators should be encouraged by the Government to place a greater emphasis, whenever they are evaluating tenders, on social value for the tender and the wider economic community impact.

I am not asking the Government to do anything illegal or to use any sleight of hand. I believe the law allows the Government to weight the tenders in such a way that there will be a successful outcome for British manufacturers. I am not proposing that the company in my constituency is the only one that benefits. Alexander Dennis, Switch and so on are all competing companies making brilliant products, and they should all be allowed to have a fair crack of the whip. One camp dominates the entire market, but I want those companies to have a fair crack of the whip. They cannot have a fair share in the market if they are outbid and outmanoeuvred by what is happening in another country.

Secondly, the Government need to give industry long-term confidence in what they are doing, by setting an ambitious plan to say that a quarter of all the buses on British roads—10,000 buses—will be emission free from 2025 to 2030. If the Government said that to those companies, they would gear up and scale up, and it would reduce the overall cost of the final product, so the potential of these companies would be realised. Going forward, we would see a vast array of new tech coming through British companies and manufacturers, because they would have the confidence in there being 10,000 orders to keep their companies in business for year after year. That would increase investment in those companies.

The Department for Transport should consider creating a Crown Commercial Service framework for zero-emission vehicles to supply and expedite the tender process. It should collaborate with other Government Departments to conduct a formal review of how other countries purchase buses and prioritise domestic content when evaluating their tender process.

The DFT and the Department for Business and Trade should provide further detail on the Trade Remedies Authority and support with the process of gathering evidence of unfair practices. There have been allegations that some of these orders have led to kickback through other companies. That should be investigated, and this should be totally transparent. I can tell Members one thing—there is no kickback through the three British companies. What is going on is clear and transparent. I hope that the Government will allow us to have confidence in how we view the future, and so that our British manufacturing companies can say, “We have turned a page today and we are going forward on a new footing. In future, the lion’s share—the overwhelming majority—of ZEBRA money will be spent on British manufacturing.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is an absolute pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) for introducing it so well. This is something that he has done not just today, but for all his elected life, and he deserves a lot of credit for what he has done over years. In particular, his commitment to Wrightbus in North Antrim can never be disputed. I wish him well.

My hon. Friend said that the Minister would be coming to his constituency. I can tell the Minister that whenever he comes to North Antrim, he will never get the lemon drizzle cake that he got in Newtownards, so my hon. Friend has an even harder task to take on. He can always ask me to send up the same drizzle cake from Newtownards, and I will ensure that it is available for the Minister’s visit. It is good to see the Minister and the shadow Ministers, the hon. Members for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) and for Wakefield (Simon Lightwood), in their place.

The factory in my hon. Friend’s constituency is a source of pride to all Northern Ireland MPs. The world-class, groundbreaking research and development carried out there is something that we in this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can be immensely proud of.

I want to refer, as I did in my intervention, to Chinese buses. We are always looking for a fair and level playing field. There is something incredibly wrong not just with the purchasing and pricing of buses, but with the Chinese human rights abuses and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities, whether they be Uyghurs, Christians, the Falun Gong or any other ethnic group.

Consideration of human rights abuses, including the persecution of those with a religious faith, should be an integral part of all trade. My hon. Friend was right to set the scene; others have spoken about the issue as well. I feel incredibly strongly about it. I chair the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, and it is always an integral part of our debate. Human rights and religious belief go hand in hand. If you take on one, you hurt the other. It is an important issue for countries across the world. China in particular seems to abuse and use people just because they are different and do not conform to what it wishes to see.

Like many others, I was delighted back in September when funding was announced for zero-emission buses. If we are ever to reach our global targets, this has to be a major part of our strategy. It was great to see that towns, villages and cities across England, including in the most rural parts of the country, were to benefit from zero-emission buses backed by £129 million of Government funding, which would also help to grow the economy by supporting green jobs at UK bus manufacturers. I particularly recall a point that was highlighted in the press release:

“To make sure more parts of England benefit from green technology, particularly remote areas where building the infrastructure needed for the buses is more expensive, the government has prioritised the first £25 million for rural communities.”

Hailing from the rural constituency of Strangford, I am very aware that we do not have infrastructure in place, and that this will take enhanced funding. The beauty of Wrightbus in my hon. Friend’s constituency of North Antrim is the capacity that it has for more. It has potential in terms of physical ability and skills levels, and it has a desire to press research further and deliver more. It is always innovative, looking to the future and going the extra mile to find its next potential track.

One reason why I supported Brexit—as most hon. Members present did, but not all—was solidified before 2016 when I heard that a contract for buses was outsourced to Germany rather than the Northern Ireland-based Wrightbus, due to scoring mechanisms. In other words, the criteria were weighted in favour of that company. I felt so much disappointment to be having that debate at the time. We are underscoring not a Brexit issue as such, but another issue of a bus company that has taken advantage.

I was therefore determined that our own businesses in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should get first refusal. That is the foundation of this debate. I thank again my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim for highlighting the need for a full Government commitment to British engineering, local jobs and the development of world-class facilities, which there are.

I wholeheartedly support my colleague, knowing that a rising tide lifts all ships. It equals the expertise, the staff skill, the research and development, the vision and the reputation that are in place at Wrightbus, and that should form a key component of any future view as to how we progress British industry and meet our environmental obligations. The then Business Minister, the right hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), said:

“It’s been fantastic to be at Alexander Dennis and see how our £129 million investment will impact British bus manufacturing.

This brings our total investment in new zero-emission buses to almost £500 million, helping to kick-start a new generation of bus manufacturing in the UK and create good, high-quality jobs from Scarborough to Falkirk.

We’re leading the way by ensuring that Britain can take advantage of high-skill manufacturing while delivering cleaner public transport for passengers across the country.”

We cannot and should not forget the jewel in the crown of bus-making, situated in the United Kingdom, and that is in Northern Ireland. I implore the Minister to ensure that Government strategy makes the best of what we have and can do. That is found in an engineering sector in Northern Ireland, an integral part—indeed, a great part—of this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We are always better together.