Buses

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Grand Committee

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, for bringing this important question before us today. The topic is close to my heart: I have spent much of my life and ministry working in rural areas. I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Given that I, too, am going to talk about particular challenges to do with rural bus services, which the noble Earl, Lord Arran, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, have spoken about, I also declare my interest as president of the Rural Coalition.

As a former Bishop of Shrewsbury and the current Bishop of St Albans, when I was looking at the statistics I was deeply alarmed to discover that Bedfordshire, in my diocese, and Shropshire, in my previous patch, have seen the second and third-greatest reductions in bus services in terms of miles lost in the country in the past four years, beaten only by Bracknell Forest. Even worse is the decrease in the quantity of subsidised bus miles in those two areas, which has decreased by 77% and 81% respectively. This has a huge impact on a whole variety of groups, particularly vulnerable people in our rural areas. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will not ignore it. Indeed, as we are wanting, longing, hoping and working for a flourishing, thriving rural community and countryside, this is a really vital aspect.

Age UK’s 2010 Loneliness and Isolation Evidence Review found strong evidence that physical isolation is still the single factor most closely associated with feelings of loneliness. Lack of a good rural bus service has an impact on a large number of groups: those who are too elderly or too young to drive, who cannot drive due to a disability or who simply cannot afford to drive at all. In those cases rural transport, particularly buses, is a vital lifeline, as well as providing important social interaction. A lack of transport is a barrier to community and to flourishing in the countryside.

As more and more services become available online and local services close or amalgamate, those without good internet connectivity or digital skills must travel even further to get the help they need. That is one of the reasons why I have been particularly passionate in talking and working with the whole issue of rural connectivity: it is fundamental if we are going to see our rural areas continue to thrive. Not everyone can use online banking. A trip to the hospital for a regular appointment can be a huge endeavour if you live in a rural area—less than one-fifth of those in rural areas have access to a hospital within a reasonable time by public transport or walking. That is not to mention the problems people can have enrolling for universal credit when they do not have a computer at home and the nearest job centre is miles away, as we have already heard, or the challenge of looking for work when people cannot drive to interviews or have young children at home to look after.

I am sure it will not surprise noble Lords that surveys show that people in rural areas express significant levels of dissatisfaction when it comes to issues of public transport. According to an analysis produced by the Department for Transport this year, more than 70% of people living in London are satisfied with their bus service compared to only 24% of those in the most rural areas.

The 2012 decision to cut the bus service operators grant, which central government gives to local authorities to subsidise socially necessary bus services, continues to bite, and has bitten especially hard in more rural parts of my diocese. Community groups, charities and church groups do extraordinary work to serve their communities by providing transport. Last week I was visiting a parish where all sorts of people use cars and minibuses to collect a whole lot of young people together for a youth group. A few weeks ago I was at a church where people were describing their weekly lunch for the elderly; they manage to ensure that everybody gets their lift in. This is, of course, informal and voluntary; it is not the same as a consistent bus service so people are able to get to places when they need to. In 2014, the Transport Select Committee of the other place concluded that:

“Central Government and local authorities are being unrealistic if they expect voluntary community transport projects to compensate for decreased bus services. Although community transport has an important role to play, in practice it does not serve all sections of the community and therefore cannot substitute for bus services”.


Young people in rural areas in particular suffer when they do not have access to consistent, timely, affordable bus services. I would therefore like to know from the Minister what Her Majesty’s Government are doing to make rural bus services a priority. What assessment have they made of the appropriateness of current access to services, and what analysis has been made of the impact of cuts, both centrally and to local government funding, on service provision? What are the Government doing to ensure that the worst off, particularly the young, have reasonable access to bus services? Will the cross-governmental strategy on loneliness be doing any work on rural transport?

As I travel around, I hear this issue raised time and again and I cannot overstate its importance. Bus services are a lifeline for rural communities and are becoming increasingly important in a digital age. I hope that today’s debate will spur Her Majesty’s Government, and indeed all of us, on in this important area.