Regional Transport Inequality

Lauren Sullivan Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)]

I am incredibly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson) for bringing forward this important debate. She spoke with passion about the subject.

The south-east can be described as leafy and rich, with Kent being the garden of England, but parts of that garden have been left unnurtured, untended and left behind. Transport inequality can be framed as a north-south divide. In my constituency, there is a north-south divide where people living in the north of the constituency have a lower life expectancy of over a decade. But both the urban and rural communities have been left behind.

When I spoke with young people during the campaign and more recently, they told me that transport is their No. 1 issue. It is about connectivity and getting across Gravesham, because there are no buses on a Sunday that can take them to town to meet their friends, and there are no buses that can take them after school if they want to stay and do extracurricular activities. A mum recently contacted me about her 16-year-old who was excited to start at Northfleet technology college, which specialises in engineering. They chose that college because of the bus route, the 305, but that has now been scrapped. We see this up and down our country: bus routes are there one day and scrapped the next. The new bus route means nearly an hour’s journey with a 20-minute walk. On top of that, a pass costs £640 for that privilege. The Kent freedom pass, which is run by Kent county council—previously Tory but now Reform-led—used to cost £50. Now it is over £550 a year and rising.

Families are being priced out, and although I helped to secure options to pay in monthly instalments, the cost remains out of reach for many. In urban areas of my constituency, reliability is a major concern. The cliff collapse at Galley Hill in the neighbouring constituency is having a major impact on the reliability of buses.

Under the Tories’ Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, millions of pounds have gone to shiny, fast-track routes. However, they serve the new developments while existing communities have lost their services altogether. The people of Northfleet lost their bus route. They were promised a physical connection between Northfleet station and Ebbsfleet International—a place that has some of the highest levels of deprivation—but that has been placed on hold indefinitely, meaning that new housing developments see that investment while those who really could do with that opportunity have been left behind. That is a two-tier public transport system, and it is not fair.

In Gravesham we see bus companies competing in a relatively small area for similar routes, undercutting each other and making timetable choices based on profit, not where people actually want to go. I am incredibly confident that the new bus services Bill will enable local people to make the routes better for themselves.

I must mention the ferry—bring back the Tilbury-Gravesend ferry—because it is not only about getting across the borough but getting to Essex, supporting our businesses as a place for growth.

[Joe Robertson]

The hon. Member mentions ferries. Perhaps she will show a little sympathy to me and my constituents, because we are entirely reliant on ferries that are unregulated and privatised, so neither the local authority nor the Government have any say over those services, whereas her local authority does have a say over her ferries. She might want to reflect on the role of Government in all modes of transport across the UK.

[Dr Sullivan]

The hon. Member and I share a passion for ferries. My ferry no longer runs, so despite having a local government agency that could intervene and supply a ferry, it let go of that contract. I will continue to bang that drum, because ferries are an incredibly important mode of transport for so many people, especially his constituents on the Isle of Wight.

The Government want to see transport as a gateway to opportunity, which I fully support, not the barrier that it is today and has been for many years. We must unleash community power and agency to bring voice to the people of Gravesham, especially the young people, who deserve the right to opportunity via buses and boats.