Zero-emission Buses

Kenny MacAskill Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I start by congratulating the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) on securing the debate. I thought his speech was both passionate and spot on in terms of analysis and presentation. He and I may disagree on many aspects—in particular, on the constitution—but on his analysis of the requirement for these buses to be made in the United Kingdom, we are certainly in agreement. It is not that long since we were promised a Brexit bonus and it was branded on the side of a bus. The irony is that the bonus will be that the bus is imported from China, which is simply scandalous.

I am advised by Unite the union that there is a suggestion that the London buses bought from China will be £100,000 cheaper than those that can be manufactured at Alexander Dennis Ltd in Falkirk or elsewhere. There are two aspects to that. First, there is a great danger, as the United States has correctly acted on with regard to cars, that the market is flooded to create a monopoly situation, thus knocking out any competition. Then we are left with whatever those companies charge, because this is undercutting and buses are flooding in, as are manufactured motor vehicles. Secondly, if the factories that currently exist are lost, the costs to the taxpayer—as we see 40 years on from the miners’ strike, in terms of devastation to communities, unemployment benefit and all the accompanying social harms—are far greater.

It is on that basis that we have to ensure that orders stay in the United Kingdom. I would like to see them go to Alexander Dennis Ltd, but I appreciate that there are other factories in the United Kingdom, although not those that simply assemble buses made elsewhere. That is not acceptable and those that are simply a front for Yutong or whatever are not UK-made buses.

There is also a need to decarbonise, which should be about a virtuous circle. We have to change, because global warming is happening. Although huge progress has been made by the motor industry—I recall arguments in the city of Edinburgh over pollution from diesel buses, which has reduced significantly—there comes a time when we have to recognise that our vehicles have to transition as we change to renewable energy. I know that we are looking at electric buses, but I will come on to argue for hydrogen buses, which Alexander Dennis Ltd manufactures. There is good reason for that.

We know that electric cars are coming in, but that is one thing in the City of London and quite another in rural parts of Scotland. Travelling long distances in an electric car can cause considerable difficulty, not just in the highlands but in my constituency of East Lothian, where finding a charging station can be difficult.

Buses are also in a difficult situation. I recall a good friend of mine, the managing director of Lothian Buses, making the point that the company does have electric buses, but he was not particularly keen on them. They were double-axled, which made certain routes difficult—they certainly chewed up the road. Anecdotally and quite humorously, he pointed out that if every bus were charged at the Annandale Street depot at the top of Leith Walk in the heart of Edinburgh, nobody in Leith would be able to boil a kettle, such would be the drain upon the grid, so it is not so simple.

A particular point that my friend made that struck home with me was that his buses go out at 6 in the morning and return at 12 at night. The drivers change, but the buses keep operating. They do not want the buses off the road for two or three hours—they cannot afford that. They want those buses running. That is why hydrogen is the fuel that he wanted, but that requires an infrastructure, because the buses require to be refuelled.

Hydrogen buses operate in Germany, in Aberdeen and probably in the City of London. They certainly operate in Glasgow: Alexander Dennis Ltd is there. Scotland is decarbonising. Hydrogen is coming in. The National Grid electricity system operator tells me that it anticipates that 100% of the green hydrogen manufactured in the UK will be manufactured in Scotland. It is not rocket science to join the dots. Hydrogen is coming in. There is a plant going to Grangemouth, a stone’s throw from Alexander Dennis Ltd in Larbert.

A hydrogen plant is coming to my own constituency because there is decarbonisation going on in the whisky sector. When I spoke to the people bringing in the hydrogen factory, I said, “Will you have excess hydrogen?”. They said yes. I said, “Could we use it for fuel?” They said, “Absolutely.” I live in a more rural area, but it certainly makes smaller buses more affordable if we can have cheap energy that is being manufactured and would otherwise go to waste. That is why in the Orkney islands they are looking at hydrogen-propelled ferries: because they have so much hydrogen being manufactured on one island that they cannot get it off the island.

Hydrogen is the fuel, but we have to have a virtuous circle. We need to decarbonise and alter our society, but the new renewable future should not just be based on manufacturing. We need a just transition. We should ensure that the fuel that we are blessed with—cheap and available green hydrogen—is used to fuel buses that are manufactured here, preferably in Falkirk and certainly in the United Kingdom. That is a just transition. The purchasing of buses from China is an unjust transition. Like what is happening in the North sea, it is a selling out of those who have contributed to the economy of this country over years and who should be the basis of the new economy that we are required to enter into.