Buses

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, for tabling this Question for Short Debate. It is very good to be able to discuss this important issue. I also draw the attention of the Grand Committee to my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. As we have heard, buses are an important lifeline for people, and the decline in bus use outside London is a serious problem that is affecting the viability of communities, particularly rural communities and those areas in our towns and cities less well served by other modes of transport, as they strive to be sustainable.

The noble Earl, Lord Arran, referred to the cuts in funding to bus schemes by local authorities and the effect that this has had on rural communities. I agree with him. I also agree with his comments about the need for effective bus services to enable people to get to work. Rural areas will suffer further decline if working people cannot live there and get to work—a point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans.

The noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, also spoke about rural areas and the dire problems experienced there with the decline in bus services. The risk of course is that they become places where people in cities have second or weekend homes, and that further exacerbates the problem until an area becomes unsustainable and dies. The right reverend Prelate spoke about the need for thriving communities, and I agreed with his comments about loneliness. Bus use and the provision of bus services have to be part of integrated services to make communities viable. Their decline is doing huge damage. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, spoke about car use and car parking. Work is going on to deter this but, as he said, it is not matched by a good bus service being in place to encourage people to get out of their cars and on to buses.

As we have heard, about half the bus journeys in England are made outside London, and, since bus deregulation in 1986, these are largely delivered by private operators. The Bus Services Bill was passed into law in 2017 and generally it is a good piece of legislation. It certainly seeks to help reduce the decline in bus use outside London. It has been on the statute book for only a year, which is probably too short a period to see whether it is having the desired effect.

However, generally there has been a downward trend in bus use over a number of years in both metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. Bus deregulation may have played a part in that, as operators have sought to work on the more profitable routes without the constraint of the routes, timetables and fares being set for them, as has been the case in London for many years. I agreed with the point that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, made about congestion. That has been a real issue affecting bus use in recent years.

Of course, the decline in bus use could be attributed to other forms of public transport coming on stream in addition to the railways. I have certainly noticed light rail and modern tram services in some of our major conurbations, such as Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and Nottingham. There may also be other issues affecting bus use. We have heard about the reductions in spending as local authorities have had to take account of their resources, and that has had a knock-on effect on the money spent on buses.

Car use is still high in rural areas and, as services have declined, the reliance on car journeys has increased even more. One bus in and one bus out a day from a town to nearby villages five days a week does not deliver the required level of service. You then get a self-fulfilling prophecy of decline, which has a huge impact on communities.

There are also issues with bus fares, operator revenues and government grant schemes, which, again, have had an effect on bus numbers and need to be taken account of. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, made a point about the effect of bus punctuality. We in London are very lucky with the number of buses that we have but in fact London has the worst punctuality rate in the whole of England. There is always another bus coming along, so no one knows whether it is late or not.

Earlier, I mentioned the Bus Services Act 2017. As I said, this was an attempt if not to increase bus use then certainly to halt its decline, and I wish that legislation every success. Work being done to make buses more user-friendly is to be welcomed. I was particularly pleased to hear that audio-visual services on buses outside London are to be improved. That should help to make disabled people more confident about getting on buses. Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, can update us on that when she responds to the debate.

We have had various partnership schemes between bus operators and local authorities for many years. These have not stopped the decline in bus use but they may have slowed it. The enhanced partnership schemes introduced by the Bus Services Act are a further extension of that. If the noble Baroness can say what has happened since the Act was brought forward, that would be helpful, although I appreciate that it has been in force for only a year. I am aware that there is a procedure to go through, including consultation and the issuing of notices, but anything that she can say will be helpful and I look forward to hearing from her.

One thing introduced in the Act, of course, was bus franchising, which was very welcome. But one thing that I was unhappy about was the obsession of the Government with metro mayors. You got these powers by default rather than having to apply to the Secretary of State only if you had a metro mayor. That is a regrettable decision and not very localist. I am aware that Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester, Steve Rotheram in Liverpool and Tim Bowles in the West of England have all pledged to use the powers. I am not sure how far they have got yet in establishing a scheme, but I was surprised that Andy Street, the Conservative metro mayor for the West Midlands, had not made any pledges at all. I actually know the West Midlands really well. I lived there for many years, and that certainly is one area that could do with a system where a bus franchise could have its timetable, fares and routes regulated much more by the metro mayor. I hope that he changes his mind. If the Minister has any more information, I would be pleased to hear it.

We have heard about open days, which would be useful to make things more helpful for bus users. I was particularly interested to read the briefing from Age UK about the problems older people have in getting to, for example, hospital appointments. As I said, having one bus in and one bus out a day really is not helpful to get you to hospital appointments. The quality of the buses, uncomfortable journeys and inconvenient times are all issues. Of course, what happens then is that people either have to have very difficult journeys or they revert to cars or taxis, which cost more money. I think that is a shame. Perhaps the Minister could say something about what we can do to ensure that there is better non-emergency transport for patients, either through better bus services or through other schemes. That, again, is one of the regrets we had in the Bus Services Act. I won an amendment here to delete that ridiculous clause about no more municipal bus companies, but then it was reversed. We never intended to have a stampede of bus companies, but it was a shame that councils could not now do something in little local areas to deal with the problems there.

I think my time is up, so I will cut my remarks there. I look forward to the Minister’s response.