Railways Bill (Second sitting)

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Laurence Turner]

Q But for inter-city, something similar to franchising?

Steve Montgomery: Yes, you can put it out.

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

Q I have a question about GBR’s licence. What can we glean from the provisions for that licence in the Railways Bill, without having seen a draft of the document?

John Thomas: It is really difficult. As I said earlier, all we can glean is that, given the reduced powers that ORR will have, it will be a slimmed-down licence; ORR will not have the power that it currently has to enforce business performance. Until we see it, we cannot really comment on it.

I am a bit surprised that we have not seen a draft of the licence yet. We have seen the access and use policy discussion document, but not a draft of the licence. It has been a long time in the making, so I am surprised that we have not seen it yet. I was told that we might not see it for some time. It is a key part of the overall framework, so until we see it, we cannot really comment on that framework. We are having to—we are having to comment on the Bill—but until we see the licence it is difficult to determine what our position will be.

[Joe Robertson]

Q What role would industry expect to play in the production of that licence?

John Thomas: As a minimum, we want to be consulted and to help to shape the licence. Our ability to do that will be affected by what will ultimately be in the Act, but we certainly want to be consulted and help to shape the licence.

[The Chair]

I am afraid that the next question will probably be the last to this set of witnesses. I call Sarah Smith.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)]

Q Both mayors have touched on this point in some detail already. I just wondered what your view was on whether the Bill contains the right elements to ensure that we can get the simplest and most local improvements made. A frustration that so many of us in this place have is that the current rail network is deeply fragmented, so completing even the most minor changes, such as repairing a door or reopening a disabled toilet, takes months if not years. I certainly have that at my local train station in Weymouth.

How do we make sure that GBR is able to be as responsive as possible to those very local, very small-scale but otherwise very important improvements to stations and the wider rail infrastructure?

Andy Burnham: If we think about it this way, mayoral combined authorities and the transport authorities that Tracy and I lead will be able to add value to the railway by bringing resource to invest in our stations and adding more passengers to the railway, because the Bee Network cap covering all modes will encourage more people to travel by train. We have something to add to the railway to make it serve people and places better, and to make access improvements more quickly, so that passengers do not walk away from the railways because they see a problem that never gets fixed. That is the way to look at it.

However, if we are going to put our own resources and effort into improving the railway, we have to be a meaningful partner. We cannot have rail as a silo that may or may not listen to us—that would not be the right arrangement. We should have a Bill that really cements the partnership and requires joint decision making, as opposed to us being consulted but maybe not listened to. It is possible to do that.

We like everything that is here, the direction of travel is right and we support what the Government are trying to achieve, but if we always have in our heads that railways serve places rather than themselves, it follows that a properly balanced partnership between the two is needed. Sometimes it feels like the railway just serves its own purposes, and does not have enough regard for places. The Bill should leave no doubt that railways are there to serve places and the people who live in them.

Tracy Brabin: I concur with Andy. It is about accountability, and it is also about revenue, so that if you have built this great station and the toilets are not working, you have skin in the game, because you want it to work. Who actually owns that responsibility: Network Rail, GBR, or the mayor who knows the need and can get on and deliver?

[Joe Robertson]

Q In previous questions today, I have asked about the integration of railways and other public transport, which the Government say they want to improve. When I have talked about my constituency and the example of connecting rail and ferries, given that our ferry companies are unregulated, privatised and controlled by private equity, the answer has come back that mayoral combined authorities will have powers to improve connectivity and timetabling issues. Notwithstanding the fact that the Isle of Wight does not have a mayoral combined authority yet, I want to ask you as mayors how that can work in practice. Does the Bill give you any extra powers, particularly on integrating modes of transport, where you have little or no regulatory powers at the moment?

Andy Burnham: It is important to say that we are doing that without the Bill at the moment. Again, we thank the Department for coming with us on the Bee Network journey. We will bring the first two rail lines into that this year; and over the next three years, eight rail lines will come into the Bee Network system. It is complex, because some of the lines begin outside of our borders, such as in Glossop and Buxton in Derbyshire, or in Southport in the Liverpool city region, but because those lines are GM commuter lines, so are not going to Liverpool, it is right for them to be in the Bee Network. We have made that argument and the Government have supported us.

We have already created an integrated ticketing system for tram and bus travel in Greater Manchester: you can tap in on both now, and there is a London-style cap. We want to add rail to that as soon as possible. When the first lines come into the Bee Network in December, people will be able to buy a paper ticket that covers tram, train and bus, but in time we want that to be integrated.

There is absolutely no reason at all why you could not have that over train and ferry travel—I know that the Mayor of Liverpool wants Mersey Ferries to be a part of his integrated system. It is complicated, but it is absolutely possible. The Department has already shown a willingness to do it, and is putting the technology into the rail industry to support that.

[Joe Robertson]

Q In the best case, as mayors, would you like to see more powers in the Bill? I get that you support the Bill, but in the best world, would you like to see more powers for mayors to integrate in it?

Andy Burnham: I think there should be a presumption in favour of integration; you are absolutely right. Other countries, such as the Netherlands, have had that as their guiding star, but we went down a fragmentation route in public transport, and have suffered as a country as a result. Integration is the way to think. People are not just loyal to one mode; they want to use transport in as convenient a way as possible. The railways have not had an imperative to think that way for a long time, but you are absolutely right to think of integration as the watchword.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q You have sort of answered one of my questions: I was going to ask about combined and integrated local transport offers and ticketing, and how that would work. I think you answered that you could consult. Will you say something about safeguards in terms of how that ticketing would work and how you would share the tickets with GBR? Can you foresee any issues with that?

Tracy Brabin: As Andy says, we are already doing it. We are sharing with the bus operators in our integrated Weaver network, where we have, for example, brought in the “mayor’s fare”. I think it is the only one in the country, and it is a day saver. It is capped and can be used on any bus, anywhere, for any number of journeys and on any operator. We work with the operators to divvy up the checks and balances of the passengers. I think you can see that it is possible.

To the previous point, devolution means that every region is different, so you do not always have to have one size fits all; you can have whatever works for you and your community. There are definitely ways to do it. Certainly, if it is done in London, that should give you comfort that it can be done elsewhere.

Oral Answers to Questions

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that. I also assure her that I have raised the importance of public transport accessibility with the leadership of Luton airport, as well as the integration of the National Rail network and the Direct Air-Rail Transit link. I am happy to discuss that matter further with her.

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

The Government talk about affordable transport for passengers in the UK, but on the Isle of Wight we are at the mercy of privatised, unregulated ferry companies that charge extortionate prices for unreliable services. If those companies refuse to lower prices and improve services, will the Minister intervene, given that he would not accept that for any other community in the United Kingdom?

Railways Bill

Joe Robertson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

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

I support some of the aims and intentions behind the Bill, and having listened to the Secretary of State’s opening speech, I certainly agree with her reasons for it, but I do not believe that what she is doing will deliver what she says.

Key parts of the Bill are taken from the previous Conservative Government’s 2023 plans to unite train and track, which were not realised due to the change of Government at the election. That does not inevitably have to be done by nationalisation; indeed, under the last Government’s detailed plans, it would have been done under a concessionary scheme. That is not ideology but pragmatism. It is using the state and the private sector to deliver better railways. That model is very similar to the model used by Transport for London, which was designed by Labour and is run by Labour in London.

It is unfathomable why the Government will not look at that sort of pragmatic scheme for the rest of the UK through this Bill. I suspect that the only answer is the inevitable one offered by the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden): this is a matter of ideology. It is about satisfying Labour’s union paymasters and Back Benchers—those Back Benchers who fundamentally run this Government, who vetoed the Government’s attempt to cut the welfare bill last summer, and who ensured that the Budget two weeks ago increased taxes to allow more welfare spending. For the Secretary of State and the Government, this is about a politically prudent pay-off, but it is bad for passengers.

I did some market research earlier. I travelled on a publicly owned service on a publicly owned track from Portsmouth Harbour to London Waterloo, and it was delayed because of signal failure. In fact, I do market research on that route quite often. The track has been in the public sector for over a decade, and signal failure continues to be the most common reason for delays to the train. The issue is not the train company, which was historically private, but the publicly owned track. It is not inevitable that nationalisation will lead to improved services, and there are no guarantees in the Bill that prices will be held down long term, or that services will improve and more passengers will travel by rail. That is simply a matter of faith, driven by a belief in nationalisation.

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

Southeastern was nationalised under the previous Government, and it remains nationalised under this Government, but this year, it has been brought into one organisation with Network Rail, and there has been the best customer satisfaction for my constituents in Bexleyheath and Crayford, and the best journey times you could see. Southeastern is at the forefront of this programme, so does the hon. Member agree that the proof is in Southeastern’s statistics?

[Joe Robertson]

The hon. Member obviously was not listening to what I said at the beginning, which was that I absolutely believe in uniting the trains and the track; that was the 2023 plan of the previous Conservative Government. If he is right about the improvements in his part of the world, I suspect that the reason is not nationalisation, but bringing the two together, so that they are subject to similar decision-making processes.

The Secretary of State opened her speech by saying that she wanted a railway system that was greater than the sum of its parts. I agree. If she were to buy a National Rail ticket in Shanklin on the Isle of Wight, get on a train there, and travel to London Waterloo or Guildford, she would, like me, use the ferry service that connects parts of the railway. Fares are not being frozen for that part of the rail route, because the Secretary of State has no powers to do that, and is not creating those powers. In fact, the cost of rail travel from Sandown, Shanklin or Ryde on the Isle of Wight through to Guildford or Waterloo will go up if the unregulated ferry companies put their fares up. The Secretary of State is doing nothing to deal with that part of the railway for people who live in my constituency.

In fact, the situation is worse than that, because the Government are extending the emissions trading system levy to Solent travel. The ferry company Wightlink, which connects the railways, will pay £1 million a year in extra charges because of that levy being extended to it. The Government talk about freezing fares for mainland rail travellers, but they are in fact putting up the costs for Isle of Wight train travellers. The use of fossil fuels cannot be avoided in crossing the Solent, because there is not the electric grid capacity in the mainland ports or the Isle of Wight ports to allow the ferry companies to go fully electric, as the trains have done. That grid capacity will not be there until the mid-2030s. The Government are putting that cost on Isle of Wight rail and road users, but they have exempted Scottish ferry companies, because they say that those provide a lifeline service. Isle of Wight ferries are every bit as much a lifeline service for my constituents, who use them to access education, NHS, friends and family and all the things that everyone else enjoys.

Oral Answers to Questions

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Simon Lightwood]

It is vital that local bus services work for local communities, and that is at the heart of the Government’s bus reforms. I encourage the local operators to consider the feedback that my hon. Friend has mentioned, recognising the role that bus services play in supporting people to meet their families and friends and make important visits, such as to the crematorium.

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

9. What steps she is taking to help improve the integration of public transport in the Isle of Wight East constituency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)]

I thank the hon. Member for his continued advocacy for this issue on behalf of his constituents. Soon the Department will publish its integrated national transport strategy, setting the long-term vision for domestic transport in England. It will focus on creating a transport network that works well for people so that they can get on in life and make the journeys they need to make easily, wherever they live.

[Joe Robertson]

Does the Minister accept—and, indeed, do the Government accept—that public transport will never be truly integrated for the Isle of Wight while it continues to rely on unregulated, unlicensed ferry services that are owned by private equity groups making bumper profits? He would not accept that for any other community in the UK; why should the Isle of Wight be left in a different situation?

[Keir Mather]

Again, the hon. Member makes a powerful point on behalf of his constituents—it is right to be frustrated by the affordability and reliability of ferry services to the Isle of Wight. I agree that urgent action needs to be taken to resolve the issues that he and his parliamentary colleagues are campaigning on. That is why it is incredibly important that we get a cross-Solent chair in place quickly, so that they can grip this issue. Fundamentally, though, we must work together to get the data necessary to create a single version of the truth, so that we can assess how to deal with these problems in the round on behalf of the hon. Member’s constituents.

Regional Transport Inequality

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Catherine Atkinson]

I am grateful for the support that my hon. Friend, alongside many colleagues, has shown for electrification and the benefits that it can bring. It would be a fitting celebration of 200 years of the modern railway to continue the electrification of the midland main line, which would bring jobs, skills and hundreds of millions of pounds in economic benefits particularly to the east midlands.

I love my region, and like so many in this Chamber I know my region’s strengths and can imagine the possibilities if investment were genuinely equitably distributed around our country. If our regional transport was more equal, it would create more prosperity, economic growth, social equality, regional development and carbon reduction as well as better air quality. Our transport infrastructure is the country’s circulatory system: it connects and enriches wherever it reaches. If someone’s circulation is not great, they feel the cold a little more in their fingers, as I well know. If it is restricted more, their arms and legs get fatigue, numbness and pain. In the extreme, it eventually leads to organ failure. That is where we had been heading for far too long, but over the last year the Government have been getting the blood pumping again.

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

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Catherine Atkinson]

I am just about to finish.

If the UK is a body, Derby is geographically at its heart and is asking to have the same chance as everywhere else to be connected. We need to maintain our change of direction to reduce the inequality in the spend per person on transport, stay on track towards the reduction, and ultimately the elimination, of regional transport inequality, and deliver fair funding for transport.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

In just one year, this Labour Government have already failed rural Britain on transport. They have scrapped the £2 bus fare cap, pushing up costs for working people; they have wasted £250 million in the process of nationalising South Western Railway, while my commuters are still stuck with cancelled peak services; and they continue to pour billions of pounds into London, while communities such as Farnham, Bordon, Haslemere and Liphook in my constituency are left behind. My constituency is just 40 miles from London, yet the difference in connectivity is stark. London enjoys a world-class system—well, when it is not being held to ransom by greedy tube driver unions, as is the case this week—but Farnham, Haslemere, Bordon and Liphook are treated very differently.

The contrast with London is outrageous. In the capital, there is a bus stop every 400 metres and services run every five to 10 minutes throughout the night. In my constituency, buses are 30 to 90 minutes apart, if they run at all, and many disappear entirely after 7 pm. Students at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham cannot get to Guildford in the evening. Meanwhile, Londoners can choose from over 100 night bus routes. Whereas passengers in London pay a fixed £1.75 fare, people in rural Surrey and Hampshire pay much more, because Labour hiked the cap.

My constituents will remember that Labour put up their fares, which is why I took action. I convened the Bordon taskforce to bring Stagecoach, local councils and local leaders around the table, and the results speak for themselves. The newly revised No. 18 bus service now runs every 30 minutes on weekdays and Saturdays, and hourly on Sundays, linking Bordon, Whitehill, Farnham and Aldershot. The No. 13 service between Bordon, Alton and Basingstoke has also been strengthened, with six Sunday return journeys. Stagecoach even trialled free travel this June after my push for better value. These are tangible improvements that make life easier for thousands of people, but gaps still remain.

It is extraordinary that there is no bus connection between Bordon and Petersfield—only 11 miles apart—except for a single school service. That is why I am in talks with East Hampshire district council to establish a new route, modelled on the Waverley “hospital hoppa”—a scheme for which I secured funding in Farnham.

[Joe Robertson]

I agree with the points that my hon. Friend’s is making. The train to my constituency runs through his constituency, and he has referred to it already. Unfortunately, my constituency is reliant on entirely privatised ferry companies in order for us to get there. Does he agree that if this Government’s outlook on transport is to be truly integrated, they need to connect all parts of the United Kingdom and stop focusing only on cities?

[Gregory Stafford]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful and important point. He is absolutely right: this Government are focused on metropolitan areas, and constituencies like his and mine, which are rural and semi- rural, are simply left behind. His mention of rail neatly brings me to my points on rail.

Rail tells the same story as buses. Three of my four major towns have train stations, but Bordon, the third largest one, has none, and the lines that do exist are fragmented and unreliable. Only this week, the 7.28 from Farnham to Waterloo was cancelled. Too often, peak-time trains arrive at Haslemere or Liphook with just four coaches. When I challenged South Western Railway on that, I was told that to avoid cancellations nearer London, it reassigned carriages away from my area. I made it clear: my commuters are not second-class citizens, and that needs to change. At South Western’s Farnham depot this summer, I pressed the company directly on the £250 million Arterio fleet, which is meant to relieve overcrowding but is still sitting idle for want of drivers or because of faults. I secured assurances of change, and I will now hold the company to account.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned, the Government wasted £250 million nationalising South Western Railway. That money could have delivered a permanent Bordon-to-Liphook bus link for 1,000 years. Instead, urban areas get Crossrail and trams, while my constituents get cancellations and four-carriage trains. That is clearly not acceptable. Much more help is needed for my constituents. Rural communities such as mine cannot keep being treated as second class. Levelling up, economic growth and net zero—all laudable aims—mean nothing if millions of people in my constituency and the surrounding areas cannot get a bus on a Sunday, or a train with more than four carriages on a Monday morning. That is the reality of Labour’s transport policy: higher fares, wasted money and broken promises. That is unacceptable to my constituents and, I hope, unacceptable to the constituents of every single Member of this House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)]

I am incredibly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson) for bringing forward this important debate. She spoke with passion about the subject.

The south-east can be described as leafy and rich, with Kent being the garden of England, but parts of that garden have been left unnurtured, untended and left behind. Transport inequality can be framed as a north-south divide. In my constituency, there is a north-south divide where people living in the north of the constituency have a lower life expectancy of over a decade. But both the urban and rural communities have been left behind.

When I spoke with young people during the campaign and more recently, they told me that transport is their No. 1 issue. It is about connectivity and getting across Gravesham, because there are no buses on a Sunday that can take them to town to meet their friends, and there are no buses that can take them after school if they want to stay and do extracurricular activities. A mum recently contacted me about her 16-year-old who was excited to start at Northfleet technology college, which specialises in engineering. They chose that college because of the bus route, the 305, but that has now been scrapped. We see this up and down our country: bus routes are there one day and scrapped the next. The new bus route means nearly an hour’s journey with a 20-minute walk. On top of that, a pass costs £640 for that privilege. The Kent freedom pass, which is run by Kent county council—previously Tory but now Reform-led—used to cost £50. Now it is over £550 a year and rising.

Families are being priced out, and although I helped to secure options to pay in monthly instalments, the cost remains out of reach for many. In urban areas of my constituency, reliability is a major concern. The cliff collapse at Galley Hill in the neighbouring constituency is having a major impact on the reliability of buses.

Under the Tories’ Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, millions of pounds have gone to shiny, fast-track routes. However, they serve the new developments while existing communities have lost their services altogether. The people of Northfleet lost their bus route. They were promised a physical connection between Northfleet station and Ebbsfleet International—a place that has some of the highest levels of deprivation—but that has been placed on hold indefinitely, meaning that new housing developments see that investment while those who really could do with that opportunity have been left behind. That is a two-tier public transport system, and it is not fair.

In Gravesham we see bus companies competing in a relatively small area for similar routes, undercutting each other and making timetable choices based on profit, not where people actually want to go. I am incredibly confident that the new bus services Bill will enable local people to make the routes better for themselves.

I must mention the ferry—bring back the Tilbury-Gravesend ferry—because it is not only about getting across the borough but getting to Essex, supporting our businesses as a place for growth.

[Joe Robertson]

The hon. Member mentions ferries. Perhaps she will show a little sympathy to me and my constituents, because we are entirely reliant on ferries that are unregulated and privatised, so neither the local authority nor the Government have any say over those services, whereas her local authority does have a say over her ferries. She might want to reflect on the role of Government in all modes of transport across the UK.

[Dr Sullivan]

The hon. Member and I share a passion for ferries. My ferry no longer runs, so despite having a local government agency that could intervene and supply a ferry, it let go of that contract. I will continue to bang that drum, because ferries are an incredibly important mode of transport for so many people, especially his constituents on the Isle of Wight.

The Government want to see transport as a gateway to opportunity, which I fully support, not the barrier that it is today and has been for many years. We must unleash community power and agency to bring voice to the people of Gravesham, especially the young people, who deserve the right to opportunity via buses and boats.

Oral Answers to Questions

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

I understand everyone’s frustrations with the tube strikes; I use public transport in London every week, and I know that when the tube is down, not only are there queues for buses, but there is gridlock on our roads. It is right that the Mayor of London has called for the RMT to get back around the table with TfL. That is what this Government want, and it is what the travelling public want. I will be talking to the director of operations at Transport for London, Claire Mann, this afternoon, to understand what the next steps are in resolving this dispute.

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

6. What steps she is taking to include ferry services in the integrated public transport strategy.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Minister—welcome.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

This year, our Department will publish the integrated national transport strategy outlining our long-term vision for transport in England. It will set out how the transport sector, Government and local leaders should work together to improve people’s everyday journeys however they choose to travel, including how people access ports and airports. We look forward to providing more information in due course.

[Joe Robertson]

I welcome the new maritime Minister to his place—it comes to something when Isle of Wight ferry company Red Funnel is operating ferries that are older than the new Minister. Will he speak to his new colleague in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Minister responsible for English devolution, to ensure that the new Mayor for Hampshire and the Solent actually has regulatory or licensing powers over transport across the Solent? If the Government create a new local leader without any powers over integrating the island that I represent, as the Member for Isle of Wight East, into the mainland, they will have failed to deliver any form of genuine integrated local transport for my constituents.

[Keir Mather]

The hon. Member speaks with passion about the state of ferry services in his constituency. It is an issue that I am keen to engage with him on further; I know the former maritime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), was very engaged in this work, too. I am looking to meet the hon. Gentleman next week, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley), to take this conversation forward. On stakeholder engagement with the ferry operator itself, that local engagement is something I will be taking part in through the Department. I look forward to engaging with the hon. Gentleman as I take that process forward.

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords]

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 10th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. I refer the House to Norfolk county council—another Conservative council, and the one in which my constituency is based—which has an enhanced partnership with bus companies. That partnership has been more effective in driving bus ridership than the franchised process has been in Manchester—at least as enacted by the Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham.

I will now deal with franchising more fully. This bizarre draft legislation appears to have taken a good idea in principle and made it worse in practice. The hon. Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) is quite right that the Conservative Government recognised in 2016 the potential for region-based transport integration. In principle, mayoral combined authorities had the scale, resources and financial sophistication to take on the responsibility of creating a franchised scheme, and would thereby have more control over the design of public transport in their area. That was a Conservative innovation, and I support it.

Under the 2017 legislation, other local transport authorities also had the ability to apply for franchise status, if I may loosely call it that. However, there was concern that smaller local authorities would not have as many resources—be they financial or top-tier management resources—to deal with and design such operations, so a critical safeguard was inserted in that legislation requiring such authorities, should they wish to go down the franchise route, to obtain the approval of the Secretary of State for their plans. It is a sense-check—a needed safeguard—because franchising exposes local transport authorities to huge commercial risk. They are not just letting contracts and, as with an enhanced partnership, adding a bit extra on, after negotiation with commercial operators; they also become responsible for the design of the full bus map and timetable, and have the resulting commercial liability of providing all the buses and drivers. Authorities can either pay a bus company to operate for a fee, and so take no commercial risk—the company just turns up and does what it is told—or expose themselves further by creating a municipal bus company and doing everything themselves. If that goes wrong, it can bankrupt a local authority.

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

On the point about financial risk for local authorities, does my hon. Friend agree there is absolutely nothing in the Bill that local authorities such as mine, the Isle of Wight council, would possibly want to touch when it comes to franchising for buses across my constituency? The risk for small unitary authorities is just far too great. If there is any opportunity at all in this Bill—I am not sure that there is—it will apply only to large city councils and metropolitan areas.

Road and Rail Projects

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

My hon. Friend was in contact with me directly a couple of days ago about mobile connectivity improvements on GWR that improve services in her constituency. I know that an integrated bus network in Cornwall is absolutely vital to her constituents, and through our Bus Services (No. 2) Bill, we want to give local leaders more powers to shape the bus networks that communities like hers need and deserve.

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

As the Secretary of State knows, the biggest connectivity issue for the Isle of Wight is its ferry services. I welcome her engagement on that issue. Might she consider cross-Solent ferry services to be part of the UK’s road and rail network? The Isle of Wight’s roads and rail are connected to the rest of the UK only via entirely privatised, very expensive and completely unregulated ferry companies.

[Heidi Alexander]

I understand the importance of a reliable and affordable ferry service. The Isle of Wight’s ferry services are obviously provided privately, and our road network, and our rail network especially, will increasingly be in public ownership in the future. While I cannot commit to doing what he asks, I can commit to working with the hon. Gentleman and his colleague on the Isle of Wight, my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley), to try to improve this situation for their residents.

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

Joe Robertson Excerpts

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 ] (Sixth sitting)

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 3rd July 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Siân Berry]

Let me clarify. Absolutely not: the hierarchy starts with people who are on foot or wheeling, and it moves down, via cycling, with motor vehicles at the bottom.

I would like to read out the evidence from the London Cycling Campaign. Its design solutions would ensure that the roads are safe, and many of them involve having extra space. The evidence sets out that

“extra space could also mean wider pavements, better sightlines”,

for cyclists who need to give way and

“less fraught interactions at floating bus stops between different mode users.”

The London Cycling Campaign argues that we should

“ensure bus services, walking, wheeling and cycling all get appropriate priority and capacity in funding, design guidance and on the ground in terms of physical space. And that likely means being more willing to reduce space and priority for private motor vehicles in more locations.”

That hierarchy is what I referred to. Where things are really difficult, it may be the right solution in a lot of cases to keep the bus on the main carriageway and make the other vehicles wait. However, that is for the design guidance. None of us is a traffic engineer—unless a Member wants to interrupt and point out that they are. That guidance must be produced in consultation with disabled people, particularly those who are blind or partially sighted, and it must also have the hierarchy in mind. Those designing the guidance should be much more willing to take space away from vehicles and to keep buses on the carriageway, if that is necessary to provide sufficient space to ensure that the roads are safe and accessible.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I rise to talk briefly about floating bus stops and therefore new clause 47. Floating bus stops exist not least to help with the flow of cyclists, and I support that aim, but they present challenges for the safety of pedestrians, particularly those with disabilities. As ever when it comes to sharing the highway, pavements, and areas in and around bus stops, everything is a balance. It is about satisfactorily mitigating the risk.

The challenge with floating bus stops relates particularly to people with disabilities. Of course, cyclists have a responsibility not to hit people, and the vast majority of cyclists are safe users of roads and cycle lanes. Some people, not everyone, have a slightly old-fashioned—I might say ignorant—assumption that somebody with a disability will be very visible, and that it should be obvious to cyclists that they need to take special care. That is simply not the case. That is an old-fashioned, outdated and, as I say, in some cases ignorant view. Disabilities, including physical disabilities, can be very hard to identify.

I would support the prohibition of new floating bus stops, and I support all the elements of new clause 47, which is about safety and about recognising the challenges, particularly for those with disabilities. We need to get this right. I urge the Government to support the new clause.

[The Chair]

Perhaps I should declare an interest: tomorrow morning at 10.30 am, I will be having a meeting about floating bus stops with representatives from Transport for London outside Colliers Wood tube station. Should any Member wish to join me, they would be most welcome.