National Bus Strategy: England

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, I think good ideas should not be party political. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, mentioned the £5 billion. If he were to read the—I would say “small print” but it was not small print—document, the £5 billion was for cycling, walking and buses, so there was £3 billion for buses and £2 billion for cycling and walking. However, the noble Lord makes a very serious point. I am delighted that the strategy is out of the door, but I am under no illusion: the hard work is about to start because we have £3 billion and we have to think about exactly how we spend it. At the moment we cannot decide that because we do not know what sort of bus service improvement plans are going to be coming forth from the local transport authorities.

The timeline looks like this: by 30 June, each transport authority will say that it is going to have either an enhanced partnership or franchising and that the bus operators are willing to take part; they will then have to work very hard indeed to prepare a bus service improvement plan by 31 October. On the basis of those bus service improvement plans and the amount of funding that is needed in order to provide the sort of revenue funding and capital funding required for those plans, the funding will be distributed. Of course, it could also be the case that bus lanes could be bolstered through a levelling up fund, so there is a lot of opportunity for local transport authorities at the moment to take buses by the scruff of the neck and bring them into the 21st century and beyond.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I give this document a very cautious welcome because it puts a lot of good ideas forward. How they will be carried out I do not know, but we have to be aware that the motoring industry is engaged at the moment in selling young people cheap motor cars, probably end-of-the-line motor cars. It is like the way tobacco companies engage young smokers. Once you have hooked them, you go on exploiting them for the rest of their life.

The Government must make the new buses very environmentally friendly. I make a special plea that they use clean air so that in future we are not recirculating dirty air into buses, which we do now, as it will give us a lead over the Chinese if we can do that. It is important that bus priority measures are given the Government’s full authority. There will be lots of people who will try very hard to stop priority measures going in, often misguided chambers of commerce and local authorities. Priority measures are essentially because we have no choice but to deal with pollution, which is one of the biggest killers of our time. It is unseen but is steadily going on with its work of killing people. I am very pleased to see that moving traffic offences are going to be decriminalised, which will help matters no end.

The last thing I want to mention is that right at the end of the report concessionary fares get some attention. They are out of control. If the Government want an idea that may work and perhaps will not cost too much, maybe they will have to get to a situation where younger pensioners do not get a free pass but are able to purchase a concessionary pass. Older or disabled pensioners will still be able to get free passes. A lot of people who use the concessionary fares could very well afford to make some subscription to a better service.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his somewhat lengthy contribution.