National Bus Strategy: England

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is very nice to have three minutes each for Back-Bench questions. I hope to take less than that. I start by congratulating the Minister on the publication of Bus Back Better. It is the most powerful transport policy document of recent years. I will put my hand up for on-demand autonomous buses when they come—they will be ideal for low-density south-coast towns.

My question for the Government is: to help those LTAs that are less successful, will the DfT move quickly to set up the dissemination of practical best advice? Will it ask the star performing LTAs how bus lanes were handled on shopping streets with delivery requirements; how narrow streets requiring the removal of parking were dealt with; and how fast but meaningful consultations could be carried out? These are all things that good LTAs have done well, as page 18 of the report makes clear, showing

“an average benefit-cost ratio of 4.2”

among 33 major bus schemes. The DfT knows where a lot of good practice is; it should not be hard to share it.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his warm words about the bus strategy—it is nice to have some. The noble Lord also makes a very important point: because we are giving more local control and accountability for bus services, the ability of local transport operators to put in place their bus service improvement plans will be critical. The noble Lord spoke of their need to share best practice. That is absolutely in the plan: the bus centre of excellence will combine learning from not only the Department for Transport but bus operators and the leading LTAs—which are already well down this track—and it will encourage everyone and ensure that they can move together at the same speed. We do not want what I call the recalcitrant LTAs: the people who have not loved buses as much as the Government have. My ambition is to make sure that we have no recalcitrant LTAs and that across the country everybody levels up so that we have good bus services everywhere.

The noble Lord mentioned demand-responsive transport. He will have seen the £20 million that we have put into 17 bids across the country. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned them. We published the list of 17 successful places back in early January; all of them have moved into the final stage and secured funding. Demand-responsive transport will be really good for rural areas. The noble Lord wants them to be autonomous, and so do I, but perhaps not just yet.