Bus Services Bill [Lords]

John Pugh Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I support the amendment and want to reflect the huge consensus in Committee on this issue. We divided on a number of matters, but it was a relaxed Committee and the Minister gave reasoned answers. The Bill represents a first step towards a change in attitude to buses. It was brought about following negotiations between the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and various metropolitan areas. A deal was reached whereby elected mayors could re-regulate bus services. I hope that this is just the first step.

I ask the Minister to reflect on this issue in a developing situation. The new Prime Minister has brought in an industrial strategy, and there is a strategy for the railways, as has been mentioned, as well as a strategy for aviation. It is rightly difficult to think of areas where large amounts of public money are spent where it is not the responsibility and the right of the Government and elected representatives to define the objectives that that public money should provide.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned a connection between directly elected mayors and bus deregulation. Does he see any logical or sensible connection between the two? Is there any reason why the two should go hand in hand?

[Graham Stringer]

It was a pragmatic decision taken by the then Chancellor and the combined authorities in metropolitan areas. There is obviously no rational basis for deciding to have a different bus system in Greater Manchester from that in Southampton, for example. What would be the rationale for that? Clearly, there is none.

The point I was making is that, having taken the first step—not necessarily consistently, but in a sensible way in the metropolitan areas—it is right to look for a strategy that would help us to get rid of a relic of ideological Thatcherism from the early 1980s, which was seen in the Transport Act 1985 that deregulated buses. What the absence of strategy says is that we do not care how many millions of pounds have gone into the bus industry since 1986 when the 1985 Act came into force. I do not know, but I would have thought that over 31 years we are talking about a large chunk out of £100 billion being spent without any policy direction at all over that spending.

What we have been left with is a rather sterile debate. On the one side it is said that buses are declining and they would have declined in any case over this period. On the other side, there are those who think that that decline was not necessary. They say that without on-road competition, which has failed, with better competition at the tender stage and with a clearer decision on what bus services were needed and what fares should be charged, we would not have lost so many bus routes and bus passengers as we have. Not having a strategy over the last 31 years is saying that it does not matter that two thirds of bus passengers have disappeared in Greater Manchester and that bus fares have gone up considerably more than the rate of inflation. But these things do matter.

As both the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) have said, the vast majority of the people we represent, particularly the poorer people who do not have access to a car, rely on buses to get to work, to get to a hospital and to see relatives at weekends, but after deregulation, many of those bus routes no longer existed. How could we not have a strategy in view of that? How could we abandon those people?

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[Huw Merriman]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Anything that can be done to get young people on to the buses so that they stay on the buses has much to recommend it. I am also conscious that subsection (2) of new clause 1 refers to “consideration” of a reduced fare scheme, as, indeed, do the points I am talking to. So perhaps a mission for Government should be that money that can be saved, or perhaps reinvested, could go towards this measure, which I believe would help young people and social mobility.

[John Pugh]

I rise to speak in support of new clauses 2 and 3 in my name and also new clause 1.

Both my new clauses are basically about coherence; neither is about dictating to local authorities, as was mischievously suggested by the Secretary of State on Second Reading. I am not trying to dictate to local authorities what they should do. Both of them are also obviously about concessionary travel for young people, which has been a thorny issue throughout the passage of this Bill.

Support for young people’s transport is variable, as the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) said, and worsening. Since 2008, 50,000 16 to 18-year-olds have had free transport withdrawn—a 42% drop, I believe. Two thirds of local authorities no longer provide free transport to 16 to 18-year-olds, and the price of bus passes for 16 to 18-year-olds varies incredibly across the country, ranging from £230 to more than £1,000. The number of transport authorities offering concessions right across their area has dropped since 2010 from 29 to 16, and 10 authorities have no arrangements that benefit the older age groups. The roll of shame of authorities that do not offer any concessionary fares for young people comprises Cheshire West and Chester, Halton, Warrington, Lincolnshire, Nottingham, Peterborough, Bracknell Forest, Oxfordshire, Portsmouth and Slough.

The situation is hardly good and the impacts are fairly obvious. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the impact on educational progress. According to the Association of Colleges, a fifth of students consider dropping out during their course, and often the reason is transport costs or, if the cost is not foremost in their mind, transport difficulties. There is an impact on students: a survey by the National Union of Students shows that two thirds of further education students pay more than £30 a week for transport—a lot of money for a young person. There is a clear impact on traffic congestion and pollution—the hon. Gentleman mentioned that, too—as more young people get a car, perhaps sooner than they should, or rely on parental transport, which affects congestion at all the wrong times in most towns. There is also an impact on educational choice—I emphasise the hon. Gentleman’s point that the worst affected are probably residents of rural areas and poorer students generally.

Within the system are clear anomalies that need to be resolved. We raised the age of compulsory education, but local authority transport obligations remain very much as they were.

[Andy Burnham]

I agree with everything the hon. Gentleman says about the withdrawal of concessionary support for young people, but does he concede that the withdrawal of the education maintenance allowance under the coalition Government made the problems for young people much worse?

[John Pugh]

The right hon. Gentleman might be surprised to learn that EMA was mentioned in my notes, but for some reason I omitted to mention it just then. He has drawn attention to it, and I dare say it was a factor.

Another anomaly in the system—this is where new clause 2 comes into its own—is that while we all accord parity of esteem as between the academic route and the technical route, and the apprenticeship route is now being sold fervently by almost all Government Members, apprentices do not really get a look in: an apprentice aged 16 to 18 gets a bare £4 minimum wage. We want to make the apprenticeship route more attractive, and there is some evidence that where schemes are introduced, they are highly successful. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the MyTicket scheme in Liverpool city region improved attendance quite appreciably. Developing transport in line with the apprenticeship system is very much a part of the city region agenda, which the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) touched.

The aim of my new clauses is relatively modest. They would not change the character of the Bill, which I broadly support. Essentially, they oblige local authorities to take a broader view of the environmental and educational impacts of transport policy.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that while the Government make huge cuts to local authority funding, even where authorities want to provide concessionary fares they are in many cases being forced to withdraw them? We heard evidence to that effect from Nexus, which said that, as much as it would like to support young people, the point was being reached in the north-east where it would no longer be able to do so.

[John Pugh]

Desperate times call for desperate remedies, and the financial situation in most local authorities at this moment is desperate, as is evident from the Audit Commission’s recent study of local authorities’ financial sustainability. Whether the Government accept that point or not, I think they will accept that there is a case for joined-up policy. The Government need to link the apprenticeship opportunity agenda with real-time transport problems and impacts. That is where new clause 2 comes into its own, and if I am supported, I will happily press it to a vote unless the Minister can assure me that all these things are within his frame of reference for the moment.