Transport
Debate between Liz Twist and Richard Holden(1 year ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
The huge importance of local bus services to communities such as mine in Blaydon has been emphasised by a dispute between Go North East and its employees. I very much hope that a negotiated settlement can be reached quickly. Is not the reality that we need better, more streamlined franchising models to give communities a greater say on their transport offer?
Mr Holden
I am sure the hon. Lady, my neighbour, welcomed the news yesterday evening that Go North East and Unite the union have managed to reach a settlement in the north-east. That is quite good news. I am sure she will also welcome the £163.5 million that we have put into bus service improvement plans, which include the option to do bus franchising. This Government have been happy to make that available to all local authorities.
[Official Report, 26 October 2023, Vol. 738, c. 968.]
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden):
An error has been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) in Transport questions. The correct response should have been:
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Liz Twist and Richard Holden(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
The huge importance of local bus services to communities such as mine in Blaydon has been emphasised by a dispute between Go North East and its employees. I very much hope that a negotiated settlement can be reached quickly. Is not the reality that we need better, more streamlined franchising models to give communities a greater say on their transport offer?
Mr Holden
I am sure the hon. Lady, my neighbour, welcomed the news yesterday evening that Go North East and Unite the union have managed to reach a settlement in the north-east. That is quite good news. I am sure she will also welcome the £163.5 million that we have put into bus service improvement plans, which include the option to do bus franchising. This Government have been happy to make that available to all local authorities.
Local Bus Services: Funding
Debate between Liz Twist and Richard Holden(1 year, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Richard Holden)
Let me first thank the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) for her speech. I did not quite gather whether or not she was in favour of our plan, but I will certainly address the points that she made. She asked whether it was a coincidence that I made a statement earlier today. I think the truth is that the Government were quaking in terror at the prospect of the Adjournment debate, and she has definitely driven this forward. However, I am genuinely grateful to her for her continued work on this issue, and for pushing the Government as well. It is nice to see someone on the other side of the House and from the same area who is as passionate about buses as I am, and I congratulate her on securing a debate on an issue that is important not just to our constituents, but to many constituents throughout the country.
The hon. Lady has often mentioned the importance of local transport services, not just in Adjournment debates to which I have responded but on many other occasions in the House. I fondly remember my first appearance at the Dispatch Box as the Minister for Roads and Local Transport, responding to an Adjournment debate on bus services in her own constituency. I am therefore delighted to have the opportunity to speak this evening about the support that the Government are providing for local bus services, especially in the light of my earlier statement.
As I think every Member would acknowledge, local transport networks and local bus services in particular are vital to ensuring that communities can stay connected, to helping many industries to operate, and, more broadly, to levelling up the country by giving people access to jobs, services and leisure activities throughout the country. That has never been more important than it is now, as we see recovery from the pandemic move slowly but inexorably in the right direction. The Government have provided unprecedented levels of support for bus operators and local transport authorities to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic—a total of more than £2 billion since March 2020, initially through the covid-19 bus service support grant and then though the bus recovery grant to help protect bus services—and that exceptional support will continue until 30 June, when we will move to a new formula.
Over the last few years, when patronage has been at a fraction of pre-covid levels, with passenger numbers across the country dropping as low as 10% on average, support for the bus sector has been crucial to significantly limit service reductions. The sector used to rely on roughly 40% support from taxpayers via concessionary fares, bus service operator grants and local support, but that increased to 60% for two years as commercial revenues took a huge hit.
Long-standing support of £250 million is provided every year to bus operators and local transport authorities through the bus service operator grant, to help keep fares down and services running that might otherwise be unprofitable. That will continue, as well as supporting council spending of around £1 billion a year to allow older and disabled people to travel on buses throughout England for free. We have ensured, as we have come out of the pandemic, that local councils have continued to pass that money on; otherwise, we would have seen far more service reductions.
While patronage by fare-paying passengers has recovered significantly, it remains significantly lower for concessionary passengers. There has been a strong recovery overall, though, in bus passenger numbers compared with some of the other public transport sectors. The London underground network, for example, is at roughly three quarters of where it was before. We have to accept, however, that travel patterns have changed to some degree since the pandemic, altered by emerging societal norms such as online shopping. It is therefore right that local bus networks adapt, but, as I made clear in my statement to the House earlier, the Government will not let our bus services fall by the wayside as this transition occurs.
We have always been clear—and I think the hon. Lady and I agree—that the cycle of short-term Government funding to prop up the sector is not sustainable for bus operators, local transport authorities or, most importantly, taxpayers and the travelling public. That is why the Government have taken action to deliver a longer-term approach that will ensure that we no longer talk about the sector’s recovery from the pandemic, but instead move on to its renewal.
I therefore confirm that the bus recovery grant will end as planned on 30 June. In its place we will provide approximately £300 million of new funding from June 2023 to April 2025 to help protect and maintain bus services and ultimately to deliver improved services for passengers. Of that funding, £160 million has been earmarked for local transport authorities through the BSIP+ mechanism, ensuring that local decision makers have the resources they need to work with bus operators to deliver better bus services for passengers, which is the central aim of the Government’s strategy.
That funding is in addition to the £1 billion allocated to 34 local areas to deliver bus service improvement plans, including £163 million for the North East and North of Tyne combined authorities, which will benefit the hon. Lady’s and my constituents. Some of those plans are already kicking in, as we saw a few days ago with the £1 single bus fare for the under-22s, which I am delighted that the Government have been able to support. The north-east plan is the biggest to have been funded in England—bigger than those of Greater Manchester or the west midlands. When the Government first awarded funding to help local areas to deliver their bus service improvement plans, we were unable to provide funding for all English local transport authorities outside London. In deciding how we should allocate additional funding under the BSIP+ mechanism, we have focused on local transport authorities that did not have large BSIP allocations. The remaining £140 million from that further package of investment in the bus sector will be provided directly to bus operators through our BSOG+ mechanism. This will benefit our area directly, because it will affect everybody in the country.
The package of funding that we have announced today will help to ensure that local communities who rely on their local bus services to live, work and travel can continue to stay connected and access the opportunities they need. We will be laying out more details of exactly how that will work. It is slightly different from the old BSOG, acknowledging that the pressures have been on rural and suburban areas, including pit villages in the hon. Lady’s and my constituencies, as well as on urban services. There is a slight change, and I will publish more information in the near future on the funding that individual areas will receive. Today we have given some allocative funding indications on the local authority side through BSIP+. BSOG+ is slightly different because there is so much more complexity when it comes to individual operators, but I will make that public as soon as possible because operators such as Go North East, which operates in both our constituencies, are keen to know.
Whether people are travelling to school, work or the shops, this Government are committed to helping them get around, and we know how important local buses are to delivering on our priorities in growing the economy. Today’s positive news is about the long-term support for which the sector has been asking, as the support for local authorities and bus companies will not end. Members who followed today’s statement closely, as I know the hon. Lady did, will know that we are extending the popular “Get Around for £2” bus fare cap. The scheme was introduced at the start of the year both as a cost of living measure and to promote bus services. It is showing positive signs of increased bus usage, with a recent Transport Focus survey of more than 1,000 people reporting that 11% of respondents are using buses more as a result of the cap. The scheme is also helping people to save on their regular travel costs, with the same survey showing that around 80% of respondents agree the fare cap will help people with the cost of living.
On a recent trip to Reed in Partnership in my North West Durham constituency, I was particularly struck that not only were the staff directly benefiting from the fare cap when travelling into Consett but the £2 cap was enabling long-term jobseekers to travel further. The £8 journey from Newcastle to Middlesbrough is currently capped at £2, so people can travel much further for much less outlay, helping them to reach jobs and opportunities beyond their local area without incurring significant extra costs. The cap was due to end on 30 June, but I am pleased to confirm again that it will now be extended to 31 October. To create long-term certainty on fares for passengers and operators alike, we will be introducing a £2.50 fare cap from 1 November 2023 until 30 November 2024, at which point we will review bus fares to support the sector in moving to a sustainable long-term footing.
We saw an increase in bus routes during the scheme’s first three months, from around 3,700 to 4,000. Around 95% of operators are currently taking part, and I hope to get closer to 100% now that it is a long-term scheme. I am grateful to the operators for working with us on the scheme, and I look forward to working with them over the next year and a half. My officials will work to confirm operators’ participation in the scheme as we continue to deliver measures that help passengers to save money, that encourage people to travel by bus and that help to grow the economy. This is just one of three schemes on road, rail and buses. With 5p off a litre for cars, vans and motorbikes, with this support for buses and with significantly below-inflation rail fare rises, we are doing what we can across the transport piece to help people with the cost of living.
The hon. Lady made a broadly cross-party speech, but it is not fair to suggest that the national bus strategy is in tatters. When the scheme was announced in 2019-20, the Government committed to spending £3 billion on the sector. Today’s announcement takes that up to £3.5 billion, which is a huge quantity of money to support the sector through what has been an incredibly difficult time. On the BSOG, I am happy to outline these things in more detail. On money distribution, the BSIP+ indicative numbers will be on the Government website within the next couple of days, if they are not there already. The hon. Lady raised an important question: what will happen to that post-2024? As I said in my speech, we will be looking at that in the long term.
As for projections of bus service numbers, we will have to see how the sector responds to the big announcements we have made today, particularly now we are securing money for the long term. On the north-east, with more than £163 million—more than £117 million of which has already been confirmed—I hope we will not need to see the reductions in bus services that she mentioned. We should, we hope, be able to see more services made available, given the extra cash provided for the area, again in a multi-year settlement. I hope to see more of the great things that were part of that plan brought forward in the near future, as we have seen in the past few years with the £1 fare and the £3 daily fare cap for under-22s.
Liz Twist
I want to press the Minister on this point about the BSIP. We all had great hopes about developments that we could make with that money. We can argue all day about the money, but a lot of us think that more money was promised at the start than has been available—nevertheless, it is there. But there is a concern that more of that money will go in preserving current services, in effect, at a higher cost, as local transport authorities have to put out the bids to run services. That was not allowed in the original BSIP. Is it correct to assume that it is allowed under this system?
Mr Holden
I do not want a situation where we are trying to play around with services in local areas; I want us to be flexible on the BSIP, at a time when there is huge pressure on bus services, particularly following the pandemic and the way they have recovered since. I am willing to speak to all transport authorities. Many may wish to modernise their schemes because of people’s changing travel patterns, for example. I will not hold a gun to their head and make them waste taxpayers money on things that will not achieve what they originally planned in their BSIP before the pandemic—that would be insane. I am definitely up for modernisation of some of their plans, but they will have to go through the Department, proper scrutiny procedures and officials. Equally, I do not want to hold people to plans that may no longer be viable.
Having said that, the hon. Lady can see from what we have done in the past few days, with that £1 fare, that some of the plans that we had at the start of the BSIP are coming through. I do not want to put handcuffs on local transport authorities that ask me whether they can tweak a scheme this way or that. I do not want to say that we will never listen to them and they must stick to what they had. That would not be a responsible use of taxpayers’ cash, and as a former member of the Public Accounts Committee, I would certainly call that into question.
Liz Twist
On that precise point, of course we want to see plans for our buses, for the infrastructure and for the services themselves—plans that are relevant today because it is 18 months since the original proposals were made. What we also want to see is the whole aim of that plan, which was to make a shift change in bus services for the future, so that our constituents, and people across the country, can step out of their front door and know that they will be able to get a bus and that the bus will be reliable.
Mr Holden
The hon. Lady and I are talking the same language. We both want to see improvements and, as we have said multiple times in this debate, one improvement that we have already seen is that lower fare. I hope to see further such things as we go through the plan, which will help to drive service improvements and to drive people on to the buses. Things may have changed in different areas over the past few years and we may have to make some tweaks but, again, I do not want to put a total straitjacket on authorities across the country.
Finally, let me reflect on a few of the hon. Lady’s points, which I thought were quite bold. She and the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) said that Labour had a plan for bus services, which I thought was stretching it a bit. A plan requires cash, long-term funding and knowing what to do with it. Just saying that they might open up the scheme to municipal operators is not a plan, but an ideological step. I am not against municipal bus companies. We have them across the country, including in some Conservative local authorities and in some Conservative constituencies. I am not against looking at those in the future, as the Transport Committee recommended.
However, during the statement earlier today one Cornish Member mentioned how their enhanced partnership had driven up bus usage—probably better than anywhere else in the country—without having a franchise model. If we flip it and look at what has happened in London, we see that the figures are lower than the average in the rest of England with a franchise model. The taxpayer has to bear that risk. I am not sure whether a totally state-controlled, state-delivered, nationalised approach is always the right answer. That is all I will say to the hon. Lady on that. I am not against it in certain areas. Obviously, in certain areas the Government are working with local authorities to deliver franchising, but that is not a plan; that is an ideological end point. It does not have consumers, bus users and taxpayers at its core, as we can see from the way the Welsh Government have dealt with buses over the past two decades since they have been in office.
Mr Holden
I am sorry but I will not take another intervention.
In closing, I again congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. I hope that she will agree that the announcement the Government have made today, building on the £2 billion of bus support that we have already provided since March 2020—taking it to £3.5 billion overall—not only to protect bus services but, with our bus service improvement plan, to enhance them, demonstrates our commitment to support the sector and to address the challenges it faces now and well into the future. I thank hon. Members for their contributions today. I look forward to discussing this further with Members in the coming months as the Government seek to deliver on our ambition for everyone everywhere to have access to affordable and reliable bus services.
Question put and agreed to.
Buses: Funding
Debate between Liz Twist and Richard Holden(1 year, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Holden
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She is indeed right that Kent and Medway will be getting extra support. In Medway, that amounts to over three quarters of a million pounds. Across Kent, on top of the almost £19 million it has already had from its first BSIP, the council will be getting an extra £2.3 million as a result of this announcement. On top of that, she will also see local bus operators receiving similar amounts of money, so she will see multiple millions of pounds for her local bus services. On when the cash will get paid, I will write to her directly. It will come in tranches at different stages, and I will happily lay that out in a letter to her. However, she can reassure her constituents that money is available and that cash is coming in, and that the local council as well as local operators will be able to use that money to fund the vital local services she mentioned.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
I look forward to discussing these issues in much more detail in my Adjournment debate on Government funding for local bus services this evening. The Minister will know, because we have neighbouring constituencies, how important bus services are to our constituencies and how absolutely essential it is to keep them, and he must know that this money will not be sufficient to maintain those services. This morning, the Minister claimed he was not going to pretend he can save every bus route. Can he confirm how many bus services he is willing to lose?
Mr Holden
I would like to thank the hon. Lady for her question, and we will be able to go into this in greater detail later. As she knows, hers was the first ever Adjournment debate I did, and I am looking forward to doing one with her again tonight. [Interruption.] Well, what has changed, despite the comments of the shadow Secretary of State, is that the north-east has already received £117 million of its £163 million of BSIP funding, and in addition it will also be benefiting today. I spoke to the leader of the hon. Lady’s council, Councillor Gannon, earlier today, before I came to the House, and talked him through the BSIP funding for the future. I would say that we obviously cannot protect every route—some routes will need to change—but the funding being delivered today will be hugely important to her and my constituents. Gateshead has had the levelling-up fund bid for more than 50 electric buses, with £100 million already and more to come with the bus service improvement plan across the north-east. Only last week, £1 bus fares were rolled out across the north-east for under-22s, thanks to the funding from the Government. That was never delivered under the last Labour Government, and I would have thought she would welcome more cash being available.
Pavement Parking
Debate between Liz Twist and Richard Holden(1 year, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Holden
I cannot speculate on what is going to be in the Budget, and I would urge hon. Members to wait and see what is going to happen later in the week. What I would say is that we have placed huge emphasis on this area already, with major investment going on across the country, and we expect to spend around £850 million by the end of this year, which is a record amount of funding. That represents a step change from previous Governments and Administrations of all colours in this space, and I expect to see that continue.
Recently in Parliament, I met Matthew Campbell-Hill, the new Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee chairman, and Cameron Wood, a constituent of the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), who are both actively campaigning on this issue. They highlighted to me, as has happened in other recent meetings I have had in Parliament, the real issues that pavement parking can cause for pedestrians and people with buggies and prams, but particularly for disabled people with sight or mobility impairments. This is an issue I have been campaigning on in my own constituency as well, where the blind community is particularly prominent in the town of Dipton.
Pavement parking has been prohibited in London since 1974, except where councils choose to permit it by implementing exemptions and erecting the necessary traffic signs. There is no specific ban outside London, but councils can implement local pavement parking prohibitions through traffic regulation orders, as well as prescribed traffic signs and bay markings. It is also the case that waiting restrictions such as yellow lines can apply to pavements as well as to the carriageway.
The Transport Committee reported on pavement parking in September 2019, with the key recommendation that the Government bring forward proposals to reform the TRO process to make it cheaper and easier for local authorities to use. Having seen it myself, I know that the process clearly needs reform. The Committee also recommended that the Government consult on a new civilly enforceable offence of obstructive pavement parking, and that we legislate across England, outside London, to address this issue more broadly.
Although successive Governments have recognised that there is no perfect solution to this difficult problem, the Government believed in 2020 that it was time to look again at the issue in detail. I am delighted to say that we had over 15,000 responses to the consultation, and each respondent was given the chance to answer up to 15 questions, providing tens of thousands of pieces of feedback and information, all of which needed to be read and analysed. Although I do not think I can please the hon. Gentleman as much as I would like by saying that we will imminently publish our formal response to the consultation, it is a very real and complex problem that we are looking to address at the earliest opportunity. I am actively working on this inside the Department.
At the moment, there are inherent dangers for all pedestrians from pavement parking, including being forced on to the carriageway. This is an issue faced by many disabled people, particularly those using motorised chairs when there are no dropped kerbs, resulting in further damage to pavements, which is a trip hazard. Maintenance is also a burden for local authorities and local taxpayers.
It also needs to be recognised that many towns and cities like ours were not designed to accommodate today’s traffic levels, or indeed cars per se. In some locations, particularly our narrower terraced streets, the pavement is the only place to park without obstructing the carriageway and so allow the free flow of traffic, including for emergency services.
All the measures on which we consulted have challenges in respect of efficacy and deliverability, and we want to take the right steps for future policy. Existing legislation allows local authorities to introduce TROs to manage traffic, and it allows them the freedom to decide what they wish to do at a local level. As the hon. Gentleman said, however, the process is time-consuming and burdensome. We recognise that it has to be reformed, as it is hugely important, and the Department is committed to doing that.
Removing bureaucracy and digitalising a costly, paper-based system is desperately needed to help speed up applications and the process more broadly. This will make it quicker and cheaper for local authorities to implement TROs. We need to reduce the average wait time of six months, which is far too burdensome and bureaucratic. At the moment it takes 12 weeks even for temporary TROs. We estimate that this could easily be reduced by a third, with resultant savings in both administrative costs and time. Digitalised TROs will also provide accurate digital data on how our roads operate, which will be needed to support autonomous vehicles in the longer term, and they will help to provide accurate information to road users in the shorter term. We are actively looking at this at the moment.
The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton also mentioned the second recommendation on the offence of unnecessary obstruction of the road. I agree with him and other hon. Members that this is a broad and not well understood area of law. The offence includes the carriageway, verges and pavement, and it already exists as a criminal offence. We could amend the regulations to make unnecessary obstruction of the pavement enforceable by local authorities, while leaving obstruction of the carriageway as a criminal matter. That would enable civil enforcement officers to address instances of unnecessarily obstructive pavement parking, as and when they find it. Enforcement against this offence would be more targeted than a general prohibition of pavement parking. This would allow egregious cases to be addressed while not penalising motorists where pavement parking is the only option, and where it is safe for pedestrians and other road users. This could be implemented relatively quickly, as it would require only secondary legislation. Through this approach, pavement parking would not become a general offence, so local authorities would not need to conduct costly and time-consuming audits of their road networks, nor would it be necessary to place traffic signs and bay markings to indicate where pavement parking was still permitted.
However, there is a challenge with this option. Parking offences currently subject to local authority civil enforcement are violations of clearly defined restrictions indicated by traffic signs and road markings, such as yellow lines or white bay markings. By contrast, unnecessary obstruction could not be indicated by traffic signs or bay markings, as “obstruction” is a general offence that may occur anywhere. As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, “unnecessary obstruction” is also difficult to define. It would require case-by-case assessment and the Department would likely need to issue properly extensive guidance to steer local authorities in the right way as to what might be deemed unnecessary obstruction, in order to prevent inappropriate and inconsistent enforcement. Any such inconsistency would also ensure that our mailbags were overflowing with correspondence from people rightly concerned about that issue.
The third option, which we have also consulted on, is a national prohibition, extending the London arrangements to the rest of the country or making local authorities able to implement this as they see fit. That option would establish a general rule against pavement parking except where there is a specific permission of a local authority, or vice versa. I think we would all agree that motorists would also benefit from a consistent rule in this space. That option would need a significant implementation period. Furthermore, it would require primary legislation, as the hon. Gentleman noted. Local authorities would need to audit their road networks to decide where pavement parking remained necessary, implement the necessary exemptions, and place traffic signs and bay markings to indicate all the places where pavement parking was to be permitted—or vice-versa, depending on which route we went down.
Consideration also needs to be given to whether it would be disproportionate to ban pavement parking across the whole country. For example, in rural areas the scale of the road network would mean that the costs of implementing a national ban in this way would be higher, while the issues caused by pavement parking are often likely to be lower, especially on verges in some rural communities. This is a complex area and it is only right that we are thorough in taking our time to consider it.
Mr Holden
The hon. Lady rightly presses me on this point. There are things I am actively considering in this area, and these are interim steps. Primary legislation is a long-term aim in this area, but there are certainly things we can do in the interim and things I hope to bring forward in the not-too-distant future.
Overall, local authorities are clearly in the best position to decide where pavement parking should or should not be permitted in their local areas, especially outside London, which is an urban conurbation. It is the Department’s role to ensure they have appropriate and effective tools to prohibit pavement parking where desired. I am fully aware that the Department’s response to the consultation is eagerly awaited, as has been made clear by hon. Members today. Although I cannot pre-empt publication of the Department’s consultation response, I am actively working on this, not just on the primary legislation, but on other measures that could be put in place in the interim period. All the options have challenges in respect of efficacy and deliverability, and it is our job to weigh up all of that and take the right steps forward. We are working through the options and the possible legislative opportunities for delivering them, and as soon as those matters are certain, we will publish the formal response. Although I cannot say this evening exactly when that will be, and I am sorry to let the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton and others down on that, I assure them that this matter is receiving our full consideration. It is a priority for us and we are aiming to publish as soon as is practically possible.
Question put and agreed to.
Bus Services: Blaydon
Debate between Liz Twist and Richard Holden(2 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Holden
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. My understanding is that it is all there. Obviously, the financial statement will happen in a couple of weeks, but my understanding is that, as of this moment, the bus funding is there and there is more to hit that target of 4,000 buses in future.
To return to my previous point about phasing out and how we will deliver things more generally, agreeing a phase-out date will not just boost the transition to clean buses, but create new skilled jobs as operators and manufactures will have greater certainty to invest. The hon. Lady will know from Nissan, which is just down the road and where many of our constituents work, how transformational the end date for car manufacturers has been. Hopefully, we will have the same when bus manufacturers move in that direction. A further £205 million of dedicated zero-emission bus funding is available this Parliament, which will keep up the momentum. The Department will provide more information on how that funding will be allocated in due course.
I acknowledge that a bid for round two of the levelling-up fund has been received from Transport North East to support zero-emission buses in the region. However, as I hope hon. Members will appreciate, given that the fund is a UK-wide competition and is currently in the assessment stage led by officials, it would not be appropriate for me to comment or express a view on bids at this stage. I wish all areas great luck in realising their local visions.
On service withdrawals and funding recovery, the hon. Lady made an important point. This has been a really difficult time for the bus sector, and we have had to provide unprecedented levels of support for operators—nearly £2 billion since March 2020—to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic. The funding was due to end in October. However, while patronage on buses has stabilised at about the 80% figure the hon. Lady gave, and it is steadily increasing, it is still below pre-pandemic levels. That is why in August we brought forward an extra six-month, £130 million extension to that support until the end of March. We will have to see about allocations for the future, but I think we all hope that bus services will actually recover. We have seen that on off-peak services, but not on peak services yet.
Liz Twist
I thank the Minister for those comments. I think the concern is that there will be a gap between the BSIP funding and the current allocation. That will be a real problem in our constituencies, with further services being cancelled, and I know my constituents are really concerned.
Mr Holden
I totally understand the hon. Lady’s concern, but I think we will have to wait for the financial statement to see whether there is anything further in that field. As I have said, however, I hope the BSIP funding will be coming through in the not-too-distant future in advance of that time—by the end of March.
I know that Nexus has been allocated nearly £13 million since March 2020 to help protect bus services in the north-east until December this year, in addition to the recovery funding we have provided directly to operators to keep things running. Over the long term, however, we are clear that the cycle of short-term recovery funding packages cannot continue indefinitely, and that is why we are looking at longer-term packages, including new arrangements between local authorities, whether franchising or closer working arrangements.
Driver shortages have been experienced in many different parts of the country recently. We have already increased the capacity for vocational driving tests, including through the recruitment of additional driving examiners, to make it easier for operators to recruit and train bus and coach drivers up and down the country. We continue to engage with the bus and coach operators, as well as with industry bodies such as the Confederation of Passenger Transport. In fact, when I was in Birmingham today, I did a video pushing some of its new driver recruitment campaigns, which I am really hoping will be successful. Go North East itself has just increased driver pay rates for existing and new bus drivers by 10%, as well as putting in some bonuses, to help with recruitment and retention.