Sustainable Local Transport

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I suppose I ought to congratulate the Minister on the good intentions expressed in the White Paper. After all, good intentions are better than nothing, although we all know where the path of good intentions can lead. A White Paper that is not backed by any bank directives or papers is not worth a great deal. This is full of good intentions and objectives on sustainable local transport to which the Opposition also subscribe. The problem is that the Statement takes no account of the fact that the Government are neither able nor prepared to will the means, thereby rendering the Statement almost valueless.

The Minister talks of a new £560 million local sustainable transport fund, but he knows that it is just a sticking plaster to cover the 28 per cent cut to local government transport spending. He knows that his own White Paper says that local transport is largely subsidised by local authorities, as indeed it is. However, the local authorities do not have the wherewithal to maintain what they have—they are engaged and will be engaged in extensive cuts—let alone to begin to approach the noble ambitions of the White Paper’s good intentions. Will the Minister confirm that the cuts have been front-loaded, which means that local government transport was cut by £309 million this year, and that he is giving £80 million back next year? No wonder his objectives cannot be realised.

I have some sympathy for the Minister. After all, his burden is to repeat the Statement that has already been presented in the other place. He is all too well aware of the bad hand he has been dealt. However, he must realise that the 20 per cent cut to the bus service operators’ grant is having a devastating effect on local bus services. With fuel prices at record levels, he must surely understand the impact of cutting this fuel cost subsidy on bus operators. How will they be able to sustain unprofitable services when the subsidy of which the White Paper boasts for the role of the local authorities is being savagely reduced? Has he not seen that, up and down the country today, councils are withdrawing services? Half of subsidised services are being axed in Somerset. More than 70 rural services are being scrapped or reduced in Durham. Nearly 30 services are threatened in North Yorkshire and 60 are being reviewed in Suffolk, while Kent, which is often significant, has warned that all unprofitable routes will be axed.

Does the Minister appreciate the social consequences of that? Is he aware that 94 per cent of colleges believe that scrapping the EMA—the educational maintenance allowance—and cutting local transport will see students unable to get to college and unable to complete their courses? We should, I suppose, praise this more recent coalition Government for not saying that those without jobs should “get on their bikes”. They have progressed to saying that they should take the bus. Which bus—the bus that is subject to being cut entirely, or the bus whose punctuality cannot be guaranteed because of the reduction in resources?

This White Paper points out, accurately, that two out of five jobseekers need to use public transport to try to find jobs and put that as the key priority in their ability to make themselves available to prospective employers. How will they look for these jobs when the services on which they depend are being cut? Is the Minister aware that his own department’s figures show that without the grant we will see a 6.5 per cent increase in fares and, consequently, a likely 6.7 per cent fall in bus use? Who are the people who will reduce bus use? They are those who either cannot get a bus or will not be able to afford the fares because they are jobless and were using the bus to try to find a job.

The Government emphasise the green agenda and the improvement in the carbon count. Is that why rail fares are to go up by 30 per cent over the four-year spending period before us? Does the Minister accept that the consequence of hiking up the cost of using public transport will be to force people to use cars more intensively? Where is the green agenda when we force people to use private transport, as opposed to what we all know are the advantages of public transport in those terms?

Finally, I note that the noble Earl indicated that he was looking forward to bids for the local sustainable transport grant. To judge those bids, the Government will have a little panel. Will it be a little quango?