Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Twist Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

4. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of bus services.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

8. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of bus service levels in England.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy Opperman)]

The Government are providing the largest public investment in buses for a generation, providing more than £4.5 billion-worth of services in England outside London since 2020, as we rebuilt post covid.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

My right hon. Fried makes a very good point. This is money that the Government give to ensure that communities across a particular constituency receive support. It should not be solely focused on one area. I will take up that point and write to the local authority myself.

[Liz Twist]

Bus mileage has dropped by just 5% in London since 2010, yet astonishingly it has fallen by more than 30% in the north-east, as the Minister will know. Kim McGuinness, Labour’s candidate for North East Mayor, is keen to fix that as a priority, if elected in May. Is it not beyond time to let local communities have power and control of their own local bus services?

[Guy Opperman]

Clearly, that we are to have a regional Mayor for the North East is good news, but I did not think the hon. Lady would be celebrating the fact that she has a disastrous police and crime commissioner as her candidate and that the previously Labour Metro Mayor of North of Tyne is now running as an independent against the Labour party. However, it is without a shadow of a doubt the

“best-funded devolution deal in the country.”

Those are not my words, but those of the previously Labour Mayor. I genuinely believe we are building back better post covid, with enhanced bus company usage in circumstances where the £2 bus fare is making a huge difference.