Transport in the North-East

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), my neighbouring MP, on securing this important and timely debate. I also want to place on the record my gratitude for her campaigning work on this issue, in the region and in the House.

Buses are how the majority of people outside London get around on public transport; according to the passenger transport executive group, outside the capital 80% of public transport trips in the UK take place by bus. Bus companies in Tyne and Wear receive tens of millions of pounds each year from taxpayers, yet we have little influence over the operations of our local bus services. That is why I join my hon. Friend in calling for quality contracts, which are the simplest and best way to ensure that the public, taxpayers and passengers have a voice in how our bus services operate.

I am old enough to remember when deregulation came in, in 1986. It was utter chaos in Tyne and Wear. The journey from the village where I lived to Newcastle went from taking 50 minutes to taking an hour and 20 minutes or an hour and 40 minutes, depending on which buses turned up. Far from moving things forward, deregulation moved them back very dramatically.

Quality contracts would replace deregulated markets with a franchising system, providing the transparency that the public deserve and require to trust the bus operators that work for them. A report to the Transport North East Committee—the combined authorities transport committee—has illustrated that if we do nothing, bus passenger numbers will continue to fall, bus services will continue to be cut, and local people, isolated people and vulnerable people will continue to be hit hardest. Although my constituency is urban and, compared with many, has good transport links, even within the city of Sunderland there are pockets where transport links are not good. The “do minimum” scenario set out in that report projects a loss of 66 million bus trips over a 10-year period as a result of above-inflation fare rises and the withdrawal of secured bus services and discretionary concessionary fares. The result will be that people simply will not travel.

Quality contracts are the simplest and most effective solution. Their benefits are multifold. They will lead to greater integration, meaning we could see an Oyster card-style system for the north-east—as the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) said, all of us who come to London for three or four days a week know how wonderful the Oyster card system is. Such a system would rectify issues with tickets not working across different bus operators and ensure that passengers get the best possible price by capping fares, as is the case in London.

There would be no more chopping and changing of vital services to suit bus operators, but instead a stable bus network that serves local people, with changes taking place only after proper consultation and engagement. There would be higher emissions standards for all vehicles. Quality contracts would ensure that bus services serve isolated communities, and would include the ability to specify such routes as part of the bidding process. All those benefits would come about while ensuring that local authorities get maximum value for money from the contracts.

For many people, bus services are the only way for them to get to employment, school or the doctor, or just to see family and friends. The point of local bus services is to serve their local communities. Local buses provide a lifeline to so many people who would otherwise remain isolated. That point was made by the Transport Committee in its report, “Passenger transport in isolated communities”, published in July, which points out that it is not only rural communities that can be isolated. If a bus operator in a deregulated market can decide to cancel a route that someone relies on, people can be isolated in cities—including Sunderland, as I said. Problems experienced by elderly people being unable to leave their home or young people being unable to find employment because of a lack of public transport go beyond the remit of the Minister, or indeed that of the Department for Transport, but affect a wide range of Departments.

I agree with the hon. Member for Hexham about east-west transport links. Sunderland is a large city. Getting from there to Newcastle is, in the main, relatively easy, but getting from there to Durham is a nightmare. The distance is only two or three miles more, but in reality someone in Sunderland who relies on public transport cannot take up a job in Durham because they simply cannot get to work on time. I know that from personal experience: one of my daughters got a job there when she first came back from university, and had to leave the house at 6.30 am to get to Durham for 9 am. It is impossible.

If quality contracts are good enough for London, they are good enough for Tyne and Wear. I look forward to the decision of the combined authority next week and urge it to make the right decision for the people of Tyne and Wear and the wider north-east.