Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords]

Jon Pearce Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jon Pearce (High Peak) (Lab)]

If I had £1 for every time someone mentioned to me that buses were not going to where they needed to go or when they needed to go there, I could probably afford to restore most of the bus services we have lost in High Peak over the last decade. Under the Conservatives, thousands of vital bus services disappeared and local communities have been left powerless, with no tools to hold the operators to account. In High Peak, we have lost—wait for it—the 202, 236, 239, X18, X57, 61A and, recently, the 271, leaving many students and commuters where I live in Hope valley unable to get to work or college in Sheffield.

This trend has continued throughout Derbyshire, where there was a reduction of over 5 million miles—do not check my maths—in the distance driven by buses between 2010 and 2023. To put that in context, it is the same number of miles as travelling to the moon and back 10 times. However, this problem is more than statistics; it is lives ruined. I think of the elderly lady in Whaley Bridge who was able to get to her monthly hospital appointments only thanks to the kindness of her neighbour, the assistant manager in Glossop who could not take a promotion to be a manager in Buxton because the 61 bus did not run late enough for them to be able to get home, and the lady in Buxton who loves the theatre but often has to leave shows in Sheffield early because she cannot get home any other way.

The first campaign I ran as a newly selected, significantly less grey, candidate was for students in High Peak to be able to get free bus travel to colleges in Greater Manchester like their classmates over the border. Working with Claire Ward, Labour’s East Midlands Mayor, we were able to save High Peak families hundreds of pounds a year and ensure that cost was not a consideration for young people when deciding what courses to do at college and what careers they dreamed of doing.

These challenges also present themselves with tourism in High Peak. In part thanks to a TikTok craze to photograph sunset and sunrise over Mam Tor, communities where I live in High Peak have been plagued by illegal parking. I am co-ordinating a response to these issues with local stakeholders, such as the Peak park, police, and councils. A key tranche of what we need to do is deliver better bus services that are integrated with local train services.

The Bill will transfer powers away from Westminster and empower local communities to take the decisions necessary for our commuters to get to work, our students to get to college, our vulnerable to access the healthcare they need, and our honeypot villages to manage tourism sustainably. For too long, people in High Peak and Derbyshire have been let down by a Tory Government and a Tory council who only delivered cuts and isolation. This better bus Bill does exactly what it says on the tin. I look forward to better bus services delivered by our local transport authorities using these powers across High Peak.