Bus Services Bill [Lords]

Kevin Foster Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

There is no doubt that in a small number of places, municipal bus companies have survived and that, in a place such as Blackpool, they play an important role in the local transport system. However, the Government do not believe that extending the provision of bus services to council after council is the right approach. It will stifle the private sector investment that has made such a significant difference. However, I pay tribute to Blackpool, which has also done excellent work on the tram system. Those of us who look back to the days of taking “The Ship” and the other historic trams up and down the seafront are slightly disappointed that that can now happen only at illumination time.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

The Secretary of State has talked about the bus service 30 years ago. Of course, the biggest difference is that buses are now genuinely accessible. Does he agree that it is welcome to see provision for audio-visual information, which my constituents have regularly raised with me?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is right. It is of paramount importance that we look after people with disabilities on our buses. An important part of that is ensuring that the right information is available and that we have the most accessible possible bus fleet. I am particularly pleased about the number of our newest buses that are manufactured in this country by some excellent firms.

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[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood). Like her, I welcome this chance to have such a detailed debate about bus services. We usually find ourselves talking about trains—we have spent a lot of time talking about one particular train line in this Chamber over the past few years—but as has been rightly pointed a number of times, most people’s experience of public transport begins and ends with a bus. Many railway passengers start their journeys by taking a bus to a main transport hub from which they can access the rail network. For most people using public transport, certainly those in Torbay, the bus provides the backbone of the service.

It is worth considering briefly how things have changed since 31 years ago, when full regulation was in place. We might look back at “On the Buses”, thinking that it was a great film and brilliant comedy, but the system then would be an absolutely awful model for running real services today. Services have moved on hugely. Nobody would have envisaged at that time internet access, better services, and the sort of high-quality vehicles that are now on the road. Full accessibility is also important, because not that long ago, it was almost impossible for a disabled person to plan a bus journey, but now all buses are accessible.

I am particularly pleased that the Bill contains provisions on audio-visual aids, which a number of people have lobbied me about. Some 9% of people in one ward in my constituency are aged over 85, which brings unique challenges when it comes to planning public transport. In another part of Torbay, well over 50% of the population is aged over 65. That means that people are likely to have visual problems and to have had to start using public transport because they were no longer medically able to drive a car.

The key thing is to break the idea that the bus service is the last-resort social service for those who cannot drive, and that people will use buses only if they absolutely have to do so. As we heard a few moments ago, many bus operators are making their services more attractive by putting in place comfortable seats, and offering a safe environment and on-board CCTV.

We have heard about people’s experiences on the old school bus. I certainly remember getting on a school bus about 25 years ago. It would bounce along—that could happen on a normal bus service, it has to be said—with people smoking at the back of the upstairs part of the bus, even though they were not supposed to do. It would not be very comfortable. The experience was such that by the time people reached 17, the priority would be to stop using a bus. That remains the image for a lot of people, because when they had to use the bus, it was awful. However, many people, including me when I use the buses in the bay, now get a very pleasant surprise when they find that those sorts of days are long gone.

[Andy Burnham]

Somebody once said in 1986:

“A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.”

Does the hon. Gentleman know who said that, and does he agree with it?

[Kevin Foster]

I was on a bus last Wednesday. Yes, I do know where that quote comes from but, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, the focus is on what we are doing today. To be blunt, if bus deregulation was such a bad thing, Labour Governments had 13 years—I believe that the right hon. Gentleman was in the Cabinet—in which to change the system.

Things have moved on with public transport, and sometimes we need to be careful about instantly ascribing cause and effect. Car ownership, and particularly households owning more than one car, has increased hugely since the early 1980s. We can debate whether that is a good thing. In many parts of urban built-up areas that were designed for no vehicles, the fact that households have multiple vehicles has created a range of problems. That has inevitably had an impact on how many people use a bus in such an area, but that is not to say that we should not wish to have quality transport systems.

When we talk about bus priority measures, I am loth to look at how they could apply everywhere. They can make sense in congested urban centres, but they will not make a huge difference in parts of Torbay. We do not have a major central business district or a huge morning rush hour. Local authorities need to be able to choose what makes sense for their areas, rather than our coming up with an arbitrary idea and thinking that if something works in one area, it will automatically work in another.

I can remember dealing with operators in the west midlands. We often heard members of the public refer to the fact that buses were running empty, and we made the point that those services were being run not by the council, but by a commercial operator, which was paying the bill for them. I told them that it would be a bit bizarre for me to write to the operator demanding that it provided fewer services around my ward to deal with that problem.

Before services had to operate commercially, there was an issue with the tight regulatory structure, as it made adaptation and change difficult. For example, there would be services to factories that did not exist anymore, or those that did not reflect new and growing populations. Although it is important that we give areas—particularly mayoral combined authorities—the powers to shape services and integrated transport networks, we do not want to go back to the days when, in theory, a committee would argue for half an hour about exactly where a bus should run through a local housing estate. That is not an appropriate plan for the future.

We have heard lots of references to local services in this debate. I hope that the Bill will help councils such as the Torbay unitary authority to deal with situations such as the one that we are having with the Local Link services. A small bus company—it is not the main provider in Torbay—has announced that it will withdraw all 16 of its services from 1 April. It did that not following consultation, but by putting the relevant notice in to the transport commissioners. The services do not operate on the main routes, but they do provide social value, particularly for the elderly population. When we analysed the services, it was interesting to find that 83% of passengers were using the concessionary bus pass scheme. That is perhaps not a huge surprise, given the demographics of Torbay, but it was quite surprising to see just how much pensioners valued the services, particularly buses 60 and 61, which serve Preston, and 62, which serves Cockington village.

I hope that the Bill will give councils the opportunity to work with operators. I know that Torbay Council is already working quite constructively with an operator—I have been asked not to name it publicly—to try to find a solution to the problems on many of the routes. We are also looking at bringing on board a not-for-profit model. The Torbay Community Development Trust is looking at how it can provide services, effectively as a social enterprise. Some of the routes will provide enough to enable it to wash its face—cover its costs—but will not provide any form of commercial return. That is why this debate is both timely and welcome, because we can see what is happening in Torquay and Paignton today, and I am able to stand here as the local MP and look at possible solutions.

Although the Government will look at individual cases when it comes to franchising powers, I hope that such powers are automatically given only to mayoral or combined authorities. This is partly about having a bulk. Some people in Torbay might think that we could run our own bus services but, in reality, we would inherently be dependent on neighbouring areas.

It is also right that we should know the name of the person who can take decisions so that we can hold them to account—they might be the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) or Councillor Anstee in Greater Manchester in the near future. People should be aware of who those people are. That situation is very different from that of the old integrated transport authorities. If we had asked people to name the chairman of the authority in their area, most would be unable to do so. There would be less direct accountability for people serving on those authorities because they were indirectly appointed by local councils. There was not the ability for someone to say, “Actually I voted for this person,” or, if they did not vote for them, to say, “This person was elected”—I suspect that I might have that experience if I lived in one or two of the areas concerned.

This is about holding someone to account for how they use their power, rather than power being handed to a local authority in a similar way to under the quality contract scheme, which was not a practical thing to use and not of an appropriate scale. Likewise, decisions will not be made in a back room by people who might have an indirect mandate, but one that is not as strong as the mandate of a directly elected mayor.

I very much welcome the Bill. Obviously there will be a fair amount of debate as it goes through Committee and its remaining stages, but I welcome the general tenor of today’s debate. This is a Bill whose time has come. We can all debate whether it is on time and, indeed, whether more transport legislation is just round the corner—

[Rob Marris]

Driverless buses?

[Kevin Foster]

There could even be driverless buses. It would be interesting to see how they would go down with passengers, given that many people—particularly older people—value a familiar driver. Whether they could have a similar relationship with the friendly robot welcoming them on board is another matter. However, 10 or 15 years ago, the idea of driverless vehicles on our roads was unimaginable. Now they are on their way, although I am not necessarily advocating that we should have them.

This is a good Bill that focuses on local transport services, and I think that it is one that will deliver. The Government’s intentions are right, and it is absolutely right that we give the Bill its Second Reading today.

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[Huw Merriman]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Perhaps for too long we have had the same players serving the same routes, and I think that the system needs shaking up. I believe that the Bill will do just that.

I was slightly concerned by attempts in the other place to make the powers that could be brought in through advanced quality partnerships a prescriptive matter. If we make it prescriptive, there is a danger that we will take the innovation out of local transport authorities. Indeed, if no further funds are going to those authorities, telling them how they should operate seems to be contrary to the kind of innovation that we are trying to put in place. Equally, while I welcome the consultation that will be required by local authorities for advanced quality partnerships, there is a danger that this requirement could place too heavy a burden on the authorities, resulting in nothing at all occurring. That certainly applies to consultation of a bus operator’s employees, which made no sense to me from a local authority perspective.

I also welcome the introduction of enhanced partnerships, which are a bit of a halfway house between advanced quality partnerships and franchising. They cover a wider geographic service area but have powers over timetabling and frequency and can set improvement objectives and analyse performance. The drawback in the Bill as it stands is that the introduction of an enhanced partnership requires a sufficient number of bus operators in the scheme not to object. Such a veto may mean that enhanced partnerships are unlikely to occur at all. Perhaps we need more checks and balances for bus operators, rather than giving them the power of veto. If I have misunderstood that, I would welcome a clarification.

Moving on to franchising, I was struck that the powers are limited to mayoral combined authorities, but it was noted somewhere in the policy documentation that they were deemed to be sufficiently democratically accountable. That may be a concern for my constituents in East Sussex, who are going to the polls in May and would hope that the council is democratically accountable. However, I take the point that our current system of county councils and district councils does not have the same clarity of power making and accountability as a mayoral combined authority.

[Kevin Foster]

Torbay has a unitary authority and responsibility for transport partly lies with Devon County Council and partly with Plymouth City Council. Does my hon. Friend agree that combined authorities normally bring together a main urban area with its rural surroundings in a democratically accountable body?

[Huw Merriman]

I agree. There is some power in the argument for more unitary authorities and for legislative incentives to encourage authorities to get together to form a unitary authority. In a way, the Bill may provide that incentive, because I note that Cornwall Council has automatic franchising powers should it wish to use them, but it does not have a directly elected mayor because it is a unitary authority. That may be an incentive for other local authorities to combine. In what is a bit of a sword of Damocles argument, Cornwall is not actually going to go down the franchising route, but we heard evidence from Cornwall Council and the feeling was that just having that power perhaps got the council a better deal through a partnership and that it is happy to persevere for the time being.

While the Bill would allow the Secretary of State to grant franchising powers to authorities that are not mayoral combined authorities, I note that four factors must be met before that can occur. Cornwall might say that it could meet them, but I can understand the concern that the power will go no further than authorities that have an elected mayor. The Lords sought to widen franchising to all authorities that want it, but I note that no quality contract schemes have been put in place since 2000. Some areas has attempted to do so but have struggled—Tyne and Wear is a recent example—but the very fact that none has made it leads me to suggest that we are in danger of asking for wider franchising powers for authorities that would not want to take them up. Franchising can also be high risk for local transport authorities due to negotiating powers and back-office requirements. I certainly hope that we do not end up with the bigger players taking advantage of better lawyers and accountants to give them better terms, with town halls suffering as a result.

Turning to municipals, I note that proposed new section 123O under clause 4 states that LTAs can be an operator of last resort when a service provider ceases to deliver a service for the remainder of its contract. In that sense, the direction of travel is to allow LTAs to step in, yet the Bill prohibits municipals at the same time. Part of me feels that, when we consider devolution and localism, a closer look at what municipals can do would be welcome. That said, I am conscious that local authorities should be enablers, rather than providers, and that municipals should perhaps be more of a last resort.