Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords]

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 10th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

I rise to speak in support of new clause 2, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) and has cross-party support. I really hope that that cross-party support holds up in the vote.

As we have heard, disability does not stop at peak times. I represent a rural constituency and our buses are very infrequent, so having a time restriction on a bus pass is even more serious. As a member of the all-party parliamentary group on classics, I enjoy a good tale about mythological creatures such as centaurs and the minotaur, but unfortunately for some of my constituents, seeing a bus is almost as likely as seeing one of them.

Remarkably, there are no Sunday bus services at all in most of my constituency. We have one of the greatest cathedrals in the world, but many of my residents cannot get to it for Sunday worship. Some of my villages have no buses at all, and the likes of Coveney and Wardy Hill have one bus per week. Others have bus services every two hours—those services are probably some of the best. If we restrict disabled people to using their passes after 9.30, they cannot catch the 9.20 bus and have to wait for the 11.20, so effectively they cannot do anything anywhere else in the morning. That cannot be right. We have to remove that restriction.

The current situation is not sustainable or acceptable. For rural communities, the situation is so dire that the recent risk of the 9 bus route between Littleport and Cambridge being halted meant that communities faced being unable to get to work or college. Constituents referred to this service as a lifeline for them, and they were right. To have a situation in 2025 where the ending of a single bus route makes entire communities a transport black hole is dreadful. It is just not acceptable. Had residents been properly consulted, I am certain the proposal would have been comprehensively rejected, which is why I support new clause 32 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) to require consultation before any discussions on the alteration or withdrawal of a local bus service. I know the new clause has not been selected, but I hope the Minister will consider it.

The Government’s decision to increase the bus fare cap hit my constituents hard, because many of them have to get more than one bus to complete their journey. I ask both for the cap to be brought back to £2 and for it to be a cap on the journey, not the fare for each bus someone catches. It should not be too much to ask for a basic, functional and affordable transport service for rural communities. Pensioners should not have to miss medical appointments because there is only one bus per hour, students should not have to worry about missing classes, disabled people should not have to miss anything in the morning, and people should not have to move from their home village for the sake of getting to work on time.

This Bill is positive, but the Government need to do a lot more to improve transport services in rural communities such as mine. It would be a start if we allowed the disabled members of those communities to catch buses at any time.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in support of the Bill and new clauses 46 and 66 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer). The Bill represents a step towards giving communities greater control over their local transport networks. Colleagues across the House recognise how vital bus services are for connecting people to opportunities, to each other and to the services they rely on. Sadly, buses are too frequently undervalued because they do not have the visible impact of a train.

It is perhaps fitting that the Bill comes at a time when we are experiencing a tube strike in London, and our colleagues based in London can understand what those of us outside London feel having an entirely dysfunctional public transport network.

I want to raise two points that I hope the Minister and colleagues will take on board as we move towards implementation. In my Calder Valley constituency, which the Minister knows well, we have seen a number of services withdrawn or reduced in frequency, particularly in the upper Calder Valley. Those changes have left many residents feeling cut off, especially in areas where alternative transport is simply not available. I welcome the extension of franchising powers to all local authorities. That is long overdue, and it is a step that gives communities such as mine the chance to shape bus networks to make those networks work for them. I urge the Government to consider how these powers can be supported with the necessary funding and guidance, so that councils can act decisively to protect routes that are essential to community life.

The second point I want to raise is about franchising. I support West Yorkshire combined authority’s plans to bring services under public control and to build a network that puts passengers at its heart. Cross-boundary routes—those that run into Lancashire or Greater Manchester—will not automatically be part of the franchise. While the Bill allows for some alternative arrangements, there is a real risk that those routes could be overlooked. We are a border county and a border country, and I am keen to ensure that the needs of my residents in Todmorden who go to work or school in Burnley are not overlooked. I know WYCA is committed to working with neighbouring authorities, and I hope the Government will support that collaboration. Passengers in Calder Valley and across the country do not plan their journeys around administrative boundaries or transport operations, and we need to be mindful of that.

I am confident that the Bill will provide a better, fairer bus network, and I am proud that it is another example of this Government making people’s day-to-day lives better. But we must ensure that isolated communities across boundary routes such as those in Calder Valley are not left behind. I look forward to working with Front-Bench colleagues to ensure that those voices are heard.

[Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)]

I will speak to new clause 2 brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon), which would extend the eligibility of disabled bus passes.

The current restrictions, which mean disabled bus passes can only be used after 9.30 am, have real and disproportionate consequences for disabled constituents, particularly those who rely on public transport as their only means of getting around. For many disabled people, buses are a lifeline. They are the gateway to essential medical appointments, employment opportunities, education and social connection, and they mean the difference between isolation and independence. In rural areas such as Frome and East Somerset, where bus services are already limited, there is a particular challenge. As has been pointed out by my colleagues, if someone misses the morning bus because their pass is not valid until 9.30 am, that can mean waiting several hours more and being late for work.